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Nevada Sunset

Presently I’m sitting in an extremely noisy restaurant in Evanston, Wyoming that’s situated next to a motel that has WiFi. Just stopped to have a salad and type in a haiku I journaled last night, a few miles east of Winnemucca, Nevada.

Nevada Sunset

This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general.

I might have taken a picture of the scene that inspired this haiku, but I was distracted by some teenagers, who appeared seemingly out of thin air, and began peeling donuts in the off ramp intersection I was pulled off at, hoot’n and howl’n all the while. I thought I was in the middle of the desert, but I guess next to a major interstate you’re never really quite in the middle of nowhere. Once I get to Rock Springs, Wyoming, I’ll leave the interstate and wend forth on the long black strip toward Wyoming’s northeast corner, which is truly the middle of nowhere. I like nowheres.

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Perfect Moments

My first terza rima. So far as I know, terza rimas aren’t generally divided into parts like this, but the end-line scheme does follow the aba, bcb, …, yzy, zz format. However, I’m using end-line alliteration here instead of end-line rhyme. Is that wrong?

Perfect Moments

This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general.

Also the lines are all pretty much perfect pentameters. I haven’t cared too much whether or not they started off with a soft foot. So it’s a mix of iambic and trochaic pentameters, strictly speaking.

What inspired this? Well my ex-intimate creature talked of these “perfect moments”, and claimed to have had more of them during her time spent with me than she had known over the course of her life. Well, I liked the idea and wanted to explore it. So I’ve thought back through the time we spent together and tried to figure out where and when she could have had these perfect moments, and to capture some of them—hopefully all—as best I could.

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black hole

And what made the outdoor security light stay on for a moment longer than it normally does? What made me look down when I normally don’t? I’ve never been able to grasp such moments of fortune.

black hole

hung in the darkness
darkness moves eight spindly legs
amassing darkness

But there it was, its strong erratic web strewn across the narrow path, just above ankle height. And she in the middle, upside down, about twice the size of a silver dollar. I swear I have never even heard of a black widow reaching such size.

The security light went out, and the large creature returned to darkness. I stepped backward to trigger the motion sensor, slowly, and after a few steps it came back into view again, unmoved.

Suddenly I felt a fear of unpredictable things. I felt a spider’s web when I opened the gate to the backyard I walk through to reach my cottage. And now I wondered what sort of creature might have spun it. How many of these large black widows might be lurking about the pathway? I’ve walked down this path in the dark without a light so many times with never a thought of such hazard.

That will never be the case again.

The odd thing is, I can’t easily bring myself to kill a black widow.

Once when I spent the night at a little known hieroglyph site in a California desert, a large black widow appeared above me in the night. I was sleeping on the floor of a body length recess in a rock outcropping. This rock and those around it possessed many hieroglyphic symbols inscribed long before the white man came.

Something bade me stay put and face my fear of the darkness–the darkness of night, the mystery of the hieroglyphs, of the spider that appeared above me in the night, the future. And so I did. I turned off my flashlight and stared at its silhouette in the darkness, the slightest hint of starlight reflected off its enameled abdomen.

I drifted in and out of sleep dreaming of long black legs, a twitching abdomen–dark gray chevron wide across its front, fangs and mouth parts. Each time I awoke I shone my light up and there it was, still unmoved.

In the pre-dawn light I saw it still. And after a few more times in and out of sleep, before the sun broke free of the valley’s west edge, I opened my eyes and it was gone. It returned to its place of mystery, to the dreaming. Even its web seemed gone.

And now I wonder where the connection lies between the circumstances surrounding my visit to that hieroglyphs site and the black widow last night. So many coincidences have been taking place lately, some of them of a dark, mysterious nature.

But the darkness doesn’t frighten me as once it did. It is the place from which we came, to which we return. It manifests all forms and is the well spring of infinite creativity.

I’ve been told that such coincidences may indicate that one is walking his songline. They are not ends in and of themselves, but indicators of what is–what already is. And what is can’t be expressed or grasped, but merely hinted at by these curious projections, these salient expressions of the dreaming.

Well I got some pictures of last night’s black widow. I’ll plan on moving it now that I know where it lives (under a domed piece of tiling that borders the pathway). But for the time being I’ll leave it alone and plan on having my light with me whenever I leave or enter my cottage. I might get a chance to take more pictures of it.

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On the Lost Coast Trail

I recently backpacked the Lost Coast Trail in the Sinkyone Wilderness State Park. It was a peaceful, invigorating enterprise that spanned four days and led to new insights about myself and abilities. Upon returning I found myself tapping out some reflections and revising them into this poem.

On the Lost Coast Trail

I’ll walk now, on my own.
My legs are strong,
  my back sturdy.

I’ll heave this pack and learn.
The trail ahead is long
  but I understand now.

Each day out I’ll greet the dawn,
cook my meal in stainless steal
  and drink strong black tea.

The past is over.
Nostalgia is but a hollow wind,
  and I a new-grown wood.

My soul was never in your arms,
but in the high up leaves
  of swaying alders,

and in a stone moved loose
as I strode to rustle,
  roll, and bound from sight.

And again in the call of an eagle,
soaring below as I hiked
  into the haze of its canyon.

At night the stars will sing,
and I’ll listen. In time
  no thought will come of you.

I feel now my heart purling
down ferny creek beds
  to join the widest freedom,

and sifting through branches,
up storied hillsides,
  each rooted thing alive.

I’ll never pass your way again,
for I have unlocked my cage,
  and the trail unfolds before me.

Up until now It’s always taken someone else to motivate me into going backpacking. This isn’t because this isn’t what I wanted to do. I’m not really sure why this is. Maybe a lack of confidence in my abilities, that I could go out into the wilderness on my own lugging around a heavy pack and actually enjoy myself.

And enjoy myself I did. In fact, I went a lot further and with greater ease than I would have guessed possible for me. It looks like my several walks a week over the past year of no less than 2.5 to 3 miles has changed my biology some. It used to be very difficult for me to hike even two or three level, or soft grade, miles with a pack, but now I find I can hike six rugged up and down miles, pressing through underbrush and crawling under and over fallen trees with relative ease. I’ve changed in the past few years, and until now I couldn’t have grasped how much.

On my first night I stayed at Little Jackass Creek, about six miles in using a fire-road shortcut I know about. Turns out this is a hot spot for week-enders all around. When I got there, there was only one official campsite left (flat with enough cleared ground to safely operate a camp stove without setting everything ablaze). And a few more sets of people showed up after I did. The second night I spent at Wheeler Camp, four plus miles north of Little Jackass. There is a great lookout between Wheeler Camp and Little Jackass from the top of a flying buttress cliff face called Anderson Point that would terrify an acrophobe senseless. From here you can see for miles both up and down the coast, and of course several hundred feet just about straight down to tidal rock reefs below. The third night, about six miles south of Wheeler Camp, I spent at Anderson Creek, which was satisfying because I was the only person in the area that night. And the next morning I hiked the long way back about six miles to Usal Beach.

And so begins a newness of life that I hope will thrive vibrantly even in the face of certain death.

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Front

A friend asked me to write her sister a birthday poem. So after getting some information from her about details pertinent to the birthday person in question, this is what manifested.

Front

for Rachel

In the distance clouds amass
thunder rolls faintly through the air
In the fields an apple tree lifts
jeweled leaves anticipating dew
In the afternoon sun a rosebush lifts
buds to greet the coming storm
All around a whisper rises up
as oaks and pines chant the nearing rain

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water

Was just looking through some of the posts in a Poetry group and came across a ‘haiku’ titled “water”. It was basically a statement saying water is water, and isn’t water great? Nothing really visual or haikuy. Found myself responding to the post with my own “water”. The only way to explain what a haiku is to someone is to just make one.

water

beneath the full moon
darkness licks a thousand stones
between reflections

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acceptance

Sometimes something breaks within ourselves, and the psyche is terrifically disfigured. Yet sometimes this becomes part of our growth and strength and not the cause of destruction.

acceptance

This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general. However, the above player can still be used to listen to it.
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spires

A ghazal! I haven’t written a ghazal since June of 2005. So that makes this—what?—my 127th. Feels nice to get one out again. I remember I got real tired of them by the end of my ghazal project a few years ago, but I never really intended to abandon them altogether.

With this one I veer away from using my penname in the signature couplet (last couplet) to using a reference to one of my penname’s meanings. In this poem it’s “open skies”, since “vast openness to the heavens” is one of the Arabic meanings for ‘Zahhar’.

spires

let’s twine our roots beneath the world together
until we rise against the wind together

let’s turn and reach to gather shades of light
with countless long thin leaves that wave together

let’s make a bed beneath our outstretched limbs
shaded by the dreams we weave together

let’s draw clear waters from the hidden earth
and breathe them out as vapors washed together

let’s share the sounds of creeks and faint cicadas
their rhythmic songs like magic wound together

let’s shelter soft brown trails among the fern
where lovers holding hands may walk together

let’s filter daylight from the open skies
through daydreams spun like amber webs together

Publication History:

Art Arena (web-based) — March 2007

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oak touch

My 22nd terzanelle. There are two particular inspirations behind this poem, but I’ll mention one. Years ago I had an extremely vivid dream involving a large black oak, species q. kelloggii, or California black oak. Without going into detail, in this dream the tree drew me to the shade of its canopy, and once there I found myself surrounded by all sorts of dream-time creatures (the sort of creatures that don’t exist in waking reality) as a raven high in the crown dropped a small something down for me to investigate. There’s more to it. Actually the dream is pretty well laid out in my poem, “markers”.

Well, two weeks later I was driving back to Ukiah from the coastal town of Mendocino over the Comptche-Ukiah road—a radically windy one-lane little thing—and as I rounded a corner just east of Orr Springs, there it was—the massive old oak from my dream. Years have passed, and I’ve struggled to understand what that dream and this oak are all about for me, but I still don’t really know. I would like to know. But I don’t know. I must settle for vague insights, as this is the way of such things.

oak touch

sepia leaves and branches shade
the supple parchment of your years
rooted deep in stardust dreams

wind shimmers through the boughs of time
beneath an ever phasing moon
the supple parchment of your years

bares the mark of ancient grace
that rustles by a canyon’s edge
beneath an ever phasing moon

grasses lap gray plates of bark
spread throughout a billowed crown
that rustles by a canyon’s edge

with each new breeze like subtle gems
glimmers softly in the dark
spread throughout a billowed crown

writhing in elusive light
the serpent beauty of your form
glimmers softly in the dark

etched against the realm of night
sepia leaves and branches shade
the serpent beauty of your form
rooted deep in stardust dreams

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Spillway

Lake Mendocino, a reservoir lake, is a few miles north of Ukiah. The lake serves multiple purposes, among which are water storage for civic and agricultural uses, hydroelectric power for the City of Ukiah, and water-sport recreation for the region’s inhabitants.

About a two mile’s walk southeast of the dam there is a broad spillway that has been cut right through a tall hillside, effectively turning one peak into two. I have found that if I play my flute at the concrete lip of the spillway, the side furthest from the lake, I can create an orchestra of reverberating echoes. The effect is often stunning and mesmerizing.

This is my 22nd villanelle.

Spillway

Amid the ghostlike skeletons of oaks,
a lone song lifts from a channel brown with grass
and echoes up to join dissevered peaks.

Whispers lap the edge of a mountain lake
nestled in a valley, smooth as glass,
amid the ghostlike skeletons of oaks.

Wind shimmers through the chambers of a reed,
resonates across a manmade vale,
and echoes up to join dissevered peaks.

Frogs concealed in rip-rap greet the dusk;
a pair of small birds chase each other’s tails
amid the ghostlike skeletons of oaks.

A raven drops clear pebbles off its beak,
a sound that ripples lightly through the air
and echoes up to join dissevered peaks.

The lone song dims to silence. In its wake
a gentle quiet settles with the dark
amid the ghostlike skeletons of oaks
and echoes up to join dissevered peaks.

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markers

This poem follows a dream I had many years ago. I talk about the experiences surrounding the dream in my introduction to the poem “oak touch”.

markers

i was half raven
   the city long since dead
  gray as the silent sky
 streaked with granite

i held the air with
   long black feathers
  in cobblestone canyons
 carved from history

i felt the old walls
   brush my wingtips
  high above narrow lanes
 stretched empty below

then the buildings gave way
   and i soared free
  through an open square
 orange with age

in the distant center
   tall as the canyon
  towers there grew
 an old black oak

its crown was full
   contrast to the lifeless
  city frozen forever
 to a moment in time

it grew from a circle
   closed in limestone walls
  where long sere blades of grass
 rose perfectly still

its scaly roots
   swam beneath the ground
  like coiled serpents
 half risen for air

and there i landed
   near its broad round base
  and rustled black feathers
 neatly behind me

high in the crown
   on a long thick branch
  a large raven worked
 at something unseen

its obsidian beak
   puzzled probed and cocked
  ’til i found myself lifting
 to see what it saw

and as i rose up
   it studied my approach
  then tossed its small find
 from the edge

it settled deep
   parting long thin blades
  as i drifted back
 to the ground

and about me there gathered
   creatures of every kind
  as i knelt as in prayer
 near the trunk

all kinds of creatures
   from all kinds of spirits
  half-mooned around me
 to see

one stood behind me
   covered with stern brown eyes
  which gazed down upon me
 and in all directions

its skin was the bark
   of all the old black oaks
  returned to the dreams
 of the earth

and i held in my hands
   like a soft feathered stone
  the black figurine
 of a raven

whose breast split in two
   its soft downy breast
  where a glimmer of light
 shone within

Over the years I’ve written a couple of poems inspired by this dream and my subsequently “meeting” the same tree in “real life”. It grows by Orr Springs Road, several miles West of Ukiah, CA. I already provided a link above to “oak touch”. The others are “Three Ravens” and “Oak Dream”.