Zipporah of Worms

In a red sea of black asphalt
a warm crevice parting
beneath the garage door
provided the miracle
for their exodus.

Then thumbing my remote
revealed flailing
seething worms in peril,
exposed once more
to November’s freezing mist.

On hands and knees
I prised free
the moist expanding muscles
searching frantically
in the not-earth of space.

And held
a writhing bouquet
of iridescent liver-colored ligaments
shimmering from brick to mauve
to most royal purple.

Anticipating their trajectory
I ferried them across the driveway
to the warmer dryer promised land
beneath the hydrangea

Murmuring:
burrow deeply
penetrate lovingly
and fertilize my garden
for spring.

On the Fourth

One boy finds
the water too wet
the sand too sandy
the sandwich
too much trouble to chew.

Brothers with lime green goggles
on their forheads
practice ancient rituals
of sibling dominance
and subservience
in six inches of water.

A toddler in pink
skims a floating wad of seaweed
with her pink plastic shovel
sucks it experimentally
flings it back in the waves.

Sisters douse the baby-sitter
with large buckets of water
over and over
a glistening teenage aphrodite
of practiced patience.

The cell phone intrudes.
“Yes, we’re at the beach —
yes, the’re in the water now —
no, I don’t know
when we’re leaving.”

Informal Upright

A pragmatic mother insisted
he take up dentistry,
but what the Manhattan boy wanted
was to be a forester.

My father pulled teeth, filled cavities,
then slipped out the back door
to bend a larch with copper wire,
the branches aesthetically alternating,
never opposing.

The boughs arranged so skillfully
as to appear random,
the trunk thickening with reverential age,
the roots embracing a rock
to establish a patient history with the landscape.

He grew his dream.
A woodland of crafted nature
a tribute to his passion for all things arboreal.
Full Moon Maple, Natal Plum
Mugo Pine, Gingko Biloba, Meta-sequoia —
and the styles as varied as the species.

Full Cascade
suggested struggling for purchase
on a cliff side.

Lightning Struck
evoked the undurance
of nature’s harsh hazards.

Windswept
reflected the capricious
relentless sculpting
of the elements.

And, of course, his favorite,
Informal Upright.
The tree that grows
sure of its own purpose
and thriving modestly
reaching for the sun
wherever it is planted.

Mountain Range, New Moon

First emerging
as places where the sky was not
even shadows were reclaimed
from objects cast by them

So massive, so dense
absorbing all senses
mists cast by stars
seeped between their peaks

From when darkness was trust
before daylight betrayed knowing
an older awareness
was required to feel them

I stood shivering
on rough planks
my new senses groping forward
with splayed hope
solid vertical assertion
finally pressing back.

a short poem

Of *course* I would be happier
if I were taller.

Effortlessly reaching the undented cans
labeled “nature’s promise organic
seasoned with select herbs”
instead of
“our own store brand
with extra growth inhibiting hormones.”

Words such as “lithe,
willowy, statuesque” would trail me
as I glide through life a like cheetah,
wearing wide brimmed hats
without looking disproportional.

Being able to see actual thoughts rise
from the top of people’s heads
I would be a better conversationalist.

I would not know the humiliation of shopping
at places called “Petite Sophisticate”
(nobody’s fooled).

Time would not be squandered
hemming sleeves and cuffs
while taller friends stuff fudge brownies
invisibly into seven more inches of torso.

The top of the refrigerator
would be dust free.

Collective arm pit odor would not be
at nose level.

It would be easier to enjoy
a foreign film
at the arthouse cinema
without interpolating the lower lines
of subtitles disappering
behind heads and shoulders.

There was a town in Sicily,
my short friend reminisced,
where everyone was exactly his size
and distantly related on his mother’s side,
and they all smiled
and prospered
and welcomed him
happy to be small
and living on the side of a volcano.

How shortsighted.

Mica Hills

 

In recollection, his features vague,
his demeanor intense, the art teacher
described how the eye
is disenchanted by the solid line,
the precisely defined image,
prefers the active engagement of
losing and finding
losing and finding both
in landscape and in figure.

I thought to share this
several times on the hike
but as with sighting
the blue blazed trail
kept losing and finding,
losing and finding
the opportunity among
threads of conversation.

Then hearing the brook,
hectic runnels
and syncopated drops
losing and finding
individual sounds
inside linear white noise.

Approaching the summit
losing and finding
form and space defining
scrub oak and sky.

And at the lookout
losing and finding
glinting mica flecks
through lichen scabbed rock,
losing and finding
a cloud shadow deepen
a jig saw piece of field.

Descending through oak groves
wind shape shifting limbs
losing and finding
losing and finding us
both in landscape and figure
caught in amber
autumn light.