Poetry
long before this time this
pile of rock in front of us
had a different name,
long before us its name
meant another thing. we claim
our time with names. each name,
one life. other times, other names.
another epoch, another time.
our time isn’t named yet –
someone else’ll do that later.
1
hummingbird greeting:
out of the tree, everywhere
hello, then nowhere
2
recede jet engine
disappear humanity
cricket stickiness
cord of black pigeons
on a gray building, gray sky
fog city morning
falling folds of gray
careening off a building
newspaper pigeon
California gets
all of the light from the day
accumulated
[with Jim]
Amazonian
toenail polish like headlights
talons blind mine eyes
what is there to say?
the Pacific ate our words
swallowed us slowly
nature doesn’t ask
the purpose of the flower.
pick any reason
when i die, happy explosions will be yours.
we tried so hard, these tiny
atoms of consequence.
a billion letters never sent,
words i couldn’t express:
all will resolve, calmly
forming an other’s
quest for meaning.
[with apologies to Edna St. Vincent Millay's Recuerdo]
it was very sunny, it was very hurried
we drove back and forth across the city
and i rented a mini, and drove it down lombard street
and i tried not to think it was like us:
lush, brief, beautiful, pretty;
popular attractions among many.
it was very foggy, it was very quiet
at the pho place with delicious complexity
like a library, a chain of libraries,
a template of noodles and tea.
during the day we sent postcards to our mothers
and pointed down at greenways hiding cars.
it was very brief, it was very sudden
the snap of a sheet, a city engulfed in flames
but to know i got close makes my chest hurt less.
it came close, but it came.
it was all for you, lover. my all, and all that i had.