After Vivaldi

In winter balance,
Waiting for snow, the

Dogs run outside after midnight. Late.

I don't know where sleep is

Nor do I have a clue where the rudder is.

Oddly, though,
I am not

Upheaved.

Wire

Someone cut the wires to our back pasture

Some time ago, probably

The electric fence to keep the

Goats from marauding in my

Garden was out,

And there they were this frigid

Morning,

When I woke up and checked out the

Back pasture from

Our bedroom window

There they were,

Having at the smoke bush

And when he went out, then, this morning,

Grousing at me, and crabby

He stayed out for a very long time

And I actually started to worry.

Soon enough, before

I would have gone to look for him

He came through the paddock from the pasture

Swinging the brush saw.

But all he did was fix the fence.

Someone else cut the fence wires to the back pasture.

Airplane

I remember the first time

The feeling dawned; I didn't know its name

I was flying in the small plane

Over a midnight blue night landscape,

And I could not see the horizon.

Sitting in the passenger seat,

Belted in, the instruments on

The cockpit panels glowed red

As we droned on, the backward dance

Of language from a small-town tower

Disappearing into the letters, numbers,

Monotone:

Whiskey Bravo One Niner Niner,

Indistinct

I could not tell if those stars were

In the constellation

Or the lights of tiny

Towns or farmyards

Along the river, down below.

There simply was no line of earth and sky

No, none that I could see.

Not that it mattered much.

That suspension, I suppose, as I recall,

Flying toward a landing strip

That meant I would be home

Was my first brush with pure

Suspended peace.

And it was years on, the

Young girl grown,

I learned that homeostasis

Was one of life's true gifts,

That fleet oneness, later blossoming

Unbidden, as autumn

Reds, leaves golden in the

Floating flash

Reflected in the car's half-opened

Windows and across a rain-splashed

Windshield,

In the drowsy motion

There, glittered by the diamond

Drops, sudden sun blooming into memory,

Flying in the moment, then, I

Understood the balance.

Another Kind of Winter Count

Down along the windbreak across the road,

Where little hedge apples fell

Onto the back of

Not a rack, but just some old

Cart there

We’d watch the green day turn to

Rose as the sun set, often orange in those

Long ago summers. 
And even when

The nighttime came on,

We could see by the

Dark lit sky,

And home was where

The grand willow

Was the only architecture

In that large back yard,

Before our mother’s lilac hedge kept out the pasture.

In an early dark

I think how I don’t want

To forget a lot of things,

So many memories, so many stories.

I am taking my winter count.

Solstice

Whippoorwills tonight,
And other birds calling to one
Another, calling
in this long, settling sunset.

Today I thought about
Haying,
In the old days
Scythe and stack,
The ancient rhythm lost to
The now of bailer, rack,
And tractor.

But still quite a thing
Of beauty,
Bringing in the hay.
Last night at Sarah and Robert's
They worked after the solstice
Light had gone

The lingering fields
Awaiting rows and
This day's rhythm carrying their
Work, until they could say
All done.

My own effort just this
Afternoon,
In sudden heat,
To water (mindful of our well),
The vegetables
And the potted things
on porches.

The dry land gardens
Flourishing in
The stone barn beds out back
Know so much more than
I do; persistence, they might

Tell me, is where there is the
Yield.

Grandmother

When he died in the river, 
She knew. In her kitchen the morning stopped short of 
The dawn and centered her stillness on water, 
The smell of sawdust from his overalls 
Filling the room as the teakettle whistled, unheard.
His black eyes and rough smile had taken her balance, his 
Force flickering fierce as days’ doors closed them in, 
And every small light passing between them 
Just ripened her knowing, her ken, 
So that long before men holding hats in their hands 
Moved through the morning to bring her the news,

Her heart had just plunged from future, from dreams. 
Maybe that knowing had nothing to do with 
Their bond, but burned up through her sinews and cells 
From the dust of her sisters and mothers, countries of women
Whose limitless borders were porous beyond time and 
Geography’s edge; her way in the world at one with 
The eons, structuring passages always unknown.
But she knew, and over the years there were times that her 
Spirit went out to meet what would happen again:

Dead cat in a ditch, clock stopped in a parlor far from the death,
Anticipation designing her motion through life

And her energy more than one woman’s should be.
He died in steel waters, under rough rafts 
Breaking up in the night, logs flailing in storm-darkened
Violence before it subsided, mist floating in daybreak, 
Calm flows carrying him far from the chaos where 
Fate and chance tumbled his life to its’ close. 
She’s been waiting for me, reaching to show me, stepping through 
Time and into the knowing where memory hovers, mine and the others, 
Her memory and theirs: apprehending, guiding and telling. 
I wake up to myself, and remember my way 
Back to my Grandmother, and them.

Returning From Taos

Tonight the half-moon is bright,
Shining like a perfect scepter
in the gift of black sky,

And across this small landscape
Gardens, projects, homeostases
Birth

I suppose finding home 
Is really about finding the pieces
Of internal peace, external peace

In some ways I was building home,
Criss-crossing the country in 
Ways that make sense to me
Collecting them

Brilliant, this half-moon,
Steady through the window's ellipse
and like a beacon --

Better yet, a streetlight,
Hovering skytime streetlight
On home's cosmic corners --
Here, it says, you
Assemble home.