Pangaea

Within old soils there is no age, no strife.
Buds, branches, bulbs and
Primeval knowing move in
Unattended rhyming with
Each change of space, each season,
The breaking apart coming from
Tides and stars, destiny
Not of your intent,
For now, though, you do not have to move
From your homeostasis.

It has come at some cost.

There will be respite when
You return to mystery,
When life will be nothing more
Than what it was that
You have told.

Wane

Out in the great dark
The crescent moon suspends, 
Portending gibbous

Four elements scramble 
For the balance that once was
Just as sure as cranes 
Landing on the braided river

Wisdom and continuity
Don't come cheap, and
What seem like just some
Little prices paid 
Might become unbearable

In the night, solitude hums, 
You look at the vast sky
And you think of all the 
Crossers of the borderlands,
Their tears watering the ancient
Ground of being 

You wrest uncertain words from a new night,
As the fog floats across the ushering moon, and 
You promise to keep trying
Even though 
You will be gone before
You'll know. 

French Inhale

When we were small, well
When we were between
Old child and teen

We stole our father's cigarettes
To learn the ways of life

And other things,
Rebelling I suppose,
Practicing the smoke

And little did I know
So many decades on
That this maneuver that
I'd learned

Would give me pause
One long night
Not knowing much of
Anything
Not even for sure that
Spring was coming.

But looking at it all
Head on
What I pull back to me
I attend to
Life won't last forever
And some things might happen
Maybe not.
But it's all of a fine circle
And as I watch,
Remembering,
The knowing and the shadows
Curl

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.