At Gloaming Read online

  But today the door would not yield,

  you did not answer my knocking grown into pounding

  and I don’t blame you;

  today I don’t recognize myself, either.

  I rifle through my pockets again,

  in my mind, retrace my steps to doors I have opened

  before today, thinking the key would be hanging

  in one of the locks of yesterday’s doors.

  When I remember where the key has been left,

  a sense of relief deflates me, leaves me shaking,

  as I fear that you’ve changed the lock by now

  because of the stranger who came to your door today,

  the one who hopes to gain admittance with one yellow rose.

  Fishing

  Like fishermen,

  we cast our prayers

  into the sky, baited

  with promises, praise and tears

  to catch some god’s attention,

  and, then, with laughable arrogance

  only humans possess,

  we throw answered prayers

  back into the sky

  in hope of hooking a bigger fish

  with our next cast.

  Fish

  He feels her eyes baiting him

  as he leans against the car door,

  thinking of fishing

  as the scenery swims by.

  Nothing she dangles

  lures him out of deep water;

  swimming around the minnow,

  he refuses to bite,

  afraid of being hooked, netted,

  pulled into the suffocating atmosphere

  inside the closed car,

  though inside his silence

  he is more afraid of the day

  she puts away her lures.

  Farm Girl

  I dreamed I’d marry a farm boy

  with a hay baler’s shoulders

  and a milker’s soft hands.

  But my farm boy says he’s had enough

  of milk cows running his life;

  he talks about Minneapolis,

  says that’s where the money is,

  so he’s gone away to college,

  plowing straight for an MBA.

  My course is undecided.

  It All

  (For Michelle)

  Sometimes it seems

  her whole life has been one long ride

  in the back seat of a car

  traveling back and forth on this same highway;

  and even now that she has a driver’s license,

  this two-lane highway beside the lake

  is still the only road,

  and it goes nowhere

  she hasn’t been ten thousand times.

  She’s bored by the curves of asphalt

  she knows by heart,

  the canyon walls of pine and spruce

  that feed a claustrophobia in her soul.

  Even the big blue lake that never shuts up,

  its shimmering surface and far horizon

  is a wall she can see through, but has no door.

  She can’t wait to get away

  to It All,

  the place the tourists come here

  to get away from.

  She’d settle for Duluth, finish high school there,

  and then it’s off to Vegas, baby,

  where, she’s heard, even a waitress

  can pull down forty Gs easy

  with a little cleavage and a smile,

  like her friend’s sister is doing.

  Two more years and she’s outta here,

  unaware, at sixteen

  that we build walls and fences,

  draw boundaries and borders to surround ourselves

  no matter where we are on the map we draw of our lives.

  Between the Lines

  On the corner of the envelope

  her return address—

  Toyota Corolla, New Mexico,

  tells me that though not homeless,

  she’s on the road,

  between adobe homes

  in Albuquerque and Las Cruces.

  She writes of making beer,

  growing hops in flower pots,

  finding work in a microbrewery

  as a master brewer’s apprentice.

  Still undecided on her life’s work,

  she thinks she should settle on something

  and why shouldn’t that something be beer?

  She writes that her lover’s staying in Las Cruces,

  working in a Barnes and Noble

  while she and Peter, their big brown dog,

  will move in with a new friend,

  a woman with a Pomeranian,

  a front porch and a garden,

  the roads being congested with moving hearts.

  Homeless in Duluth

  I wish my ears

  were big as elephant ears,

  huge elephant ears

  made of wool and flannel,

  wool on the outside to cut the wind,

  flannel on the inside, soft on my skin.

  I’d wrap my big wool and flannel

  elephant ears all around myself

  and I wouldn’t be cold tonight.

  The Burden of Souls

  On the highway north of Erzurum, Turkey,

  migrating Kurds, traveling like gypsies,

  on horseback, in ox and donkey carts

  piled high with all they own;

  bearded men, veiled women, shy children,

  one girl carrying a rooster, walk beside this caravan,

  dogs herding sheep, goats, cattle on their migration,

  all captured in one black-and-white image.

  I heard it said that these nomadic people

  believe the camera has the power to steal their souls;

  the angry expressions on the faces of the men,

  hurling curses in Kurdish, confirming this.

  Forty years later, I still have the picture of this caravan.

  I wonder, how do I relieve myself of the burden of these souls,

  the care of my own, being burdensome enough.

  In Light Of

  The same day

  I saw a photo

  of an old grandma

  pushing an old grandpa

  out of Sarajevo

  in a wheelbarrow

  my boss

  bought a Lincoln Continental

  about a block long

  to transport

  his over-the-belt belly

  the twelve blocks

  between his home and office.

  I really didn’t feel like riding

  my bike twelve miles

  to work and back today.

  I could’ve driven;

  but I felt a need

  for self-righteousness,

  misplaced, though it was,

  in light of an old grandma

  pushing an old grandpa

  out of Sarajevo

  in a wheelbarrow.

  The Perfect Time

  Enshrouded in a cloud of snow

  kicked up by a county plow

  on an icy road—

  it’s enough to scare the Zen into anyone,

  not knowing if you’ve lived a minute

  or a lifetime

  inside this snowy nebula

  or whether or not your tires are still on the road.

  Only when you emerge

>   into transparent blue air, alive it seems,

  and no other cars head-on in your lane,

  do you think, damn, ain’t this the perfect time

  to begin your life anew.

  Runaway Tractor

  Lennon called it instant karma,

  the preacher, reaping what you sow,

  the judge says actions have consequences,

  some simply say shit happens.

  The poet says, talk about metaphor

  slappin’ your face,

  kickin’ your ass,

  shakin’ you awake

  like your old man waking you for school;

  metaphor gushing as the hose lets loose

  from the tank of maple nectar,

  the John Deere 2020, headed down the hill,

  nobody at the wheel,

  and no stoppin’ it with prayers or curses,

  all because you failed to set the brake,

  put the tractor in gear,

  chock the wheels, front and rear.

  Barn

  Rusty nails

  with nothing to do in old age

  but soak up sun,

  protrude from the weathered oak ribs

  of a sway-backed old barn,

  think how it would be

  to be silver and useful again,

  holding tight a new wooden skin

  that keeps at bay the wind

  whistling through this rattling skeleton,

  how it would be

  for the barn to be filled up again,

  warm beef in its belly,

  dry hay in its head.

  Cowbell

  The rock ’n’ roll bands

  have taken all the cowbells

  to add a rhythm to their sound.

  Meanwhile, all the quiet cows

  wander in the silent fog

  with no way to be found.

  One Way to Bridge a Cultural Divide

  Just get an old backhoe

  with a broken fan belt,

  two guys,

  one, an Anglo volunteer,

  the other, a Hispanic mechanic,

  a couple 9/16th inch open-end wrenches,

  a new fan belt that doesn’t fit,

  (install that one first)

  and one that does.

  After they scrape their knuckles on the fan,

  fighting to make a belt that’s too short, work,

  have them talk like men talk—

  to the belt, to the fan, the bolts, the wrenches,

  words like “hijo de puta”

  or “son of a bitch, this fucker won’t fit”

  and next thing you know

  they’re talking about their families and jobs,

  baseball and winter storms

  and when they finally get the belt installed,

  end their conversation with high fives of success

  as the backhoe growls back to life.

  Perspective

  (Cañones, New Mexico)

  A rich woman

  owns two houses in Cañones,

  lives in one of them a few months a year

  when she can get away from her career.

  She drives by rusted trailer houses,

  yards full of junk that is not junk,

  saved for reasons unknown,

  to reach her retreat

  with the view of Pedernal and Tsiping Mesa.

  Villagers peek out curtained windows

  as she passes by in her new car,

  wondering what it must be like

  to be like her,

  to live in busy Chicago

  where the money seems to flow

  like water released into the acequia,

  then come to humble Cañones

  on a bumpy, rutted road

  to seek quiet and peace.

  The people don’t begrudge her what she has;

  there have always been rich and poor,

  but the irony is not lost on those

  who have remained poor enough

  to live in heaven all their lives,

  somehow unable to leave.

  Ghost Warriors

  From a tribe I don’t recognize,

  these people with skin pink as a dog’s belly,

  climb the steps we carved in this red rock mesa

  when ours was the only tongue spoken.

  In those times, my tribe of farmer warriors

  would not allow these intruders to pass,

  spilling their blood before they reached our home.

  Now we are gone as clouds that drop no rain,

  our houses, even our sacred kiva crumbled by time.

  Yet, the spirits of our warriors inhabit the cold wind,

  raising dust that stings the eyes and soft skins

  of these invaders, driving them back to the valley,

  scurrying for highways and restaurants,

  soft beds and churches;

  while the warrior wind sings and laughs all night.

  Kokopelli

  The old trickster

  plays his flute

  all day,

  all night;

  the music, like wind

  weaving buffalo grass,

  and anyone can see,

  that cat can dance, too.

  Thousand-Year-Old Songs

  (The music of Sharon Burch)

  Her guitar strings,

  the threads of a dream catcher,

  gather wisps of old songs

  sleeping on the wind

  when her fingers begin to dance.

  She sings songs

  made up by a young Dineh girl

  gathering dry piñon

  from a waterless stream bed

  a thousand years ago,

  when hers was the people’s only tongue.

  Dull Knife’s Blanket

  What could be more honest

  than Nebraska in February,

  the ground barren,

  cattle huddled in muddy pens,

  dirty snow in ditches

  and the lee of fence posts,

  sandhill cranes not yet returned

  to the fields along the Platte,

  the sky, tattered and frayed,

  sunset bloody as Dull Knife’s blanket,

  dragged from Sand Creek,

  left in the hills above Ft. Robinson.

  Reflection on a Starry Night

  Driving south on U.S. 285

  between Antonito and Tres Piedras,

  Van Gogh’s eyes reflect the night

  in my rearview mirror.

  Vincent’s in the back seat

  leaning his one ear against the window;

  he appears to be ill, dizzy

  from watching the universe spin.

  I ask if I should drive him to a clinic—

  Taos isn’t far out of our way.

  No. No, he says,

  afraid I might become hypnotized

  by what I see in his eyes,

  Just watch for elk

  crossing the goddamn highway.

  A Place Called Ghost Ranch

  Georgia O’Keefe, inscrutable, enigmatic

  as some long-neglected goddess,

  stares at me, unblinking, from a bookshelf,

  perched there like a hunting owl.

  Were I a mouse, scurrying

  across the desert floor in moonlight,

  I’d let her kill me if she had to

/>   for the sake of art,

  but only on the condition

  she lay a cactus flower

  beside my still-warm body,

  before she begins painting

  the skeleton she see inside me.

  There is no questioning the motives

  of gods, owls or artists, yet

  I entreat the goddess,

  as a last request,

  to allow the artist to paint the sky

  amethyst and indigo,

  allow the owl to relentlessly ask its question,

  though the answer has become irrelevant

  to all but some curious poet,

  not as alone as he presumed, in a library,

  populated, at midnight, only by sleeping authors

  on retreat at a place aptly called Ghost Ranch.

  With a Nod to Georgia O’Keefe

  (And the Grateful Dead)

  I place scarlet begonia blossoms

  in the empty eye sockets

  of a sun-bleached cow’s skull,

  try to capture with camera

  depth, angle, slant of light,

  creep of shadow, color

  and whatever is color’s opposite;

  making art of life and death,

  as if art could take the place of breath

  by scattering scarlet petals about,

  already having begun to shrivel and wither.

  The skull grins into the lens.

  .

  You Wish

  He pulls up to the pump in his tan mini-van,

  three screaming kids buckled in,

  fills its tank and his lawn mower’s gas can,

  sighs at the rumble as a Harley revs up

  at the next pump over,

  almost cries as a blond in black leather

  wraps her hair in a red bandana,

  swings her long leg over the saddle,

  hooks her fingers in some dude’s belt loops,

  looks right at him with eyes that say

  ha, you wish!

  roars out onto the highway.