Canyons

When I was young I used to drive
with no companion or destination in mind.

Cutting through heavy valley heat on the 101
then curving toward the coast through Topanga Canyon
1969, on an unmarked road by a no trespassing sign,
parked between the boulders, eucalyptus and
sage with four-track off and eyes closed
I’m seventeen and waiting for a
transformation—that wasn’t coming that
afternoon.
Or any time soon.

For every hasty engagement
there was a Benedict Canyon.
For every cleaving together
there was geography.

Let It Go, Buddha

Let it go, Buddha
keeps saying, still so attached
to detachment that veins

I imagine at his temples
are throbbing like the chanting
of ancestors on a CD

I bought cheap for $7.97.
For once again I’ve had
the wrong idea, Calvitholicism

an indissoluble oil slick floating
on Buddha’s smooth sea
of equanimity.

Summer Lusters

I.
Lace things in a hotel room, on a pier.
Your grainy bangs.
Neck, shoulders, pyre-light time of day.
Whisper of ocean in your mouth, the wish for a breathing horizon.

II.
My old capacity
to trust: it was a gift. Speechlessly I waited.
Ideas were ovoid and hostile.

Where was she?

III.
Even now, while you’re far off, I feel you touching me
as in the making.
Moth-like kisses on face and hands
as space opens
where the rapine of waves dispersed the grains.

Summer Ended Long Ago

I was the woman going home
after a hard day.

I took the long way
across the soccer field,
no one was playing,
the clouds tasseled.

If there were still good things
in this world
I wanted to feel it in the ground
that holds me up,

catches me when I fall.

Self Portrait with No Wrinkles

A bowl of just picked tomatoes.
Deep green basil growing in a pot.
Yellow sun on yellow plates.
Showered body in a crisp shirt.
Shiny shoes.
Pants other than sweats.
Cello proficiency.
Window overlooking the sea.
Twelve devilled eggs waiting.
A friend request from Bob Dylan.
Pink vintage rose blooms all year.
No haircut needed.
No dust.
Loved by everyone.
Peak of health.
Rosy future.
No self-deception.

Horizon Views

Ocean to horizon…
land to horizon…
a woman stands
between.

She stares at the distance
and dreams of where
driftwood was born
as its temporary home
snags her shore.

This Wasn’t Supposed to Be About You

You see power lines and I see twilight But you follow me everywhere, even when I sail across seas, live in other countries, speak foreign languages. Especially when I speak foreign languages. They remind me of your many tongues, fingers in my mouth, body like a map revealing unknowns that make me all at once prepared and still afraid.

Before the Lightening

The sea mist condenses in the chill of pre-dawn Now rain streams down the roof, pocking the sand Yet the sea washes evenly its morning tide coming in Its white caps brilliant in this yet-night

North

For a moment in the calm, between gusts of wind: the faint push of air beneath wing. The northern harrier drifts above a flowering field of yellow mustard. Bobbing among the eddies, the murre learn centuries of the waterwork and currents, driven unthinking by what we cannot know.

All the mournful songs

All the mournful songs They pick the finest days To play from the treetops Where the orioles whistle And dogs howl at the feet Wailing branches bridge Into dirges at sunset When I go out for a walk Along the shore – Saturnine sea sighing To my face as I gather Pebbles for a headstone. […]

Visitant

Literary pilgrims welcome

sea