And here I am, again
seeking the simplest solace
the flicker of pink
in an underwing
don’t know if you saw it
which tips me over
again, the elegant branching
of a dormant magnolia
like alveoli against
the darkening sky
but too brittle
for breath, also
but this illusion
of inertia
is beguiling
for once flight
seems frantic
or perhaps just out
of reach
to stay rooted exactly
here without even the weight
of a thought of returning
no movement no reckoning
that might be fine
All night the snow
sliding off the roof
the tattoo of freezing rain
yielding to sun at dawn
the deer came quietly
up in the yard
moving slowly
in the deep snow
and not too warily
the landscape softned
the foothills blanketed
everything settling
and coming down
to rest
On the other side of the pass
it doesn’t flatten out exactly
but without the trees
the horizon appears everywhere
lines of demarcation
and a sense of expansiveness
doing laps in our skinny skis
we heard coyotes yap in the distance
and the sun it set
just a little bit later
A sea change
sitting in the dark
listening to it rain
just how long
have I been holding
my breath?
A different kind of rain
today, static,
and a peculiar light
cast up from the bay
filtering through damp streets
steel and glass
a very high tide today
they said-
knowing what is beneath,
now obscured, I can imagine
it more clearly, vividly
if less realistically,
a strange tradeoff,
and not an unwelcome one
More rain,
and drowsy expectation—
soon, something
will happen, plans
have been made,
action will be
taken, just not
yet—
the world outside
remains
discrete, drops
on the glass
each a microcosm
of its own
Flood warning
even the hills
get treacherous
side streets
and alleys
like tributaries
water finds
the fastest way
or makes a way—
before I would
have made something
of this, or tried—-
now I just watch
some guy out
in the thick of it
shouting
and throwing rocks
at the cars that pass by
We missed the countdown
a TV delay
screaming outside
and the belated realization
a ten second handicap
on eating our grapes
The theme today was down
the staircase
the network
gravity
as a prelude
to entropy
fragments
the corallary
more
but less orderly
the IT department
not answering the phone
finally I left
up the stairs
that earlier proved
elusive
bruises like galaxies
in hazy expansion
sharp departures
from the orderly
unrecoverable
and accelerating
More doors are closed now
in the hospital
patients sequestered behind glass
scrawled on with O2 sats
a menagerie of respiratory failure
such an artificial habitat-
beyond the windows
the mountain is out
austere white margins
suspended above the horizon
by unlit foothills
what a sunrise today–
everyone was talking about it
neon pink as the surgical masks
our buyer found somewhere
although with each minute
the blockprint fades
into just a day
like any other–
banal elevator banter
and the growing hush of the unit
floating between two worlds
with an illusion of levity
like a cloud, or an iceburg
OPTIONAL POETRY 