—Photo by Katy Brown, Davis
LABYRINTH OF OBJECTS
under the Museum
—Taylor Graham, Placerville
Human-made objects, but seemingly
magical as the wand of time passed over,
deepening the glaze of potsherds
returned to earth; a seal carved into stone
in the likeness of a common living
creature turned mythical by the carver’s
knife—we don’t even know what
name to call it. We lose our way here,
among the remains of peoples
buried by the tides of climate and war.
Look, here’s a simple rusted tin-can—
maybe a sign we’re getting closer to our
aboveground lives. Almost ghosts
ourselves, as we move from object to
object in the maze of mankind’s making;
holding a fairy-light in our hands.
________________________
ESCAPE
—Taylor Graham
I wake up parched.
How to recover those dreams?
They’ve taken off on invisible dark bikes
back to the land of the unconscious.
Bats to their roost. And dawn
has stirred up the clouds,
letting loose
its light-bugs down the waterway
that springs from high
above the summit, sailing on upper-
level winds whispering
to breezes down the swale.
How can the day be
anything but metaphor?
under the Museum
—Taylor Graham, Placerville
Human-made objects, but seemingly
magical as the wand of time passed over,
deepening the glaze of potsherds
returned to earth; a seal carved into stone
in the likeness of a common living
creature turned mythical by the carver’s
knife—we don’t even know what
name to call it. We lose our way here,
among the remains of peoples
buried by the tides of climate and war.
Look, here’s a simple rusted tin-can—
maybe a sign we’re getting closer to our
aboveground lives. Almost ghosts
ourselves, as we move from object to
object in the maze of mankind’s making;
holding a fairy-light in our hands.
________________________
ESCAPE
—Taylor Graham
I wake up parched.
How to recover those dreams?
They’ve taken off on invisible dark bikes
back to the land of the unconscious.
Bats to their roost. And dawn
has stirred up the clouds,
letting loose
its light-bugs down the waterway
that springs from high
above the summit, sailing on upper-
level winds whispering
to breezes down the swale.
How can the day be
anything but metaphor?
Moon Rose
—Photo by Katy Brown
HIKING
—Annie Menebroker, Sacramento
"The lawn has been mowed.
The Republic is safe."
—Peter Rodman's Facebook page
Changing the landscape, the lawn turns to
rocks and succulents. Flowers and vegetables.
Less care and low-flow water.
Generations of lawns are taken down
from their mighty position, like
a popular postage stamp; too many
look-a-likes in green. The musical
Waterbird no longer makes its percussion
sound and wet blessing.
A screen door is part of the memory.
A rocking chair. Little parks
for everyone's front yard. Something
beautiful causes the eye to leap.
There's a small map into the wilderness.
______________________
"The lawn has been mowed.
The Republic is safe."
—Peter Rodman
IMMORTALITY
—Jane Blue, Sacramento
Now the lawn is strewn
with white dogwood petals.
Nothing stays the same.
The bed of parrot tulips
is immortal in photographs
like your grandmother young
in her exotic Edwardian finery:
the picture sepia, you imagine it
tinted; the tulips were orange
and feathered like wings.
The lawn needs mowing
every other day, in this
warmth after rain, Pink
roses have burst out of
their buds, and oh!
the perfume. Then they're
blown white and odorless.
So quickly. You shake the tree
so all the white blossoms
are gone from it, then you
mow again.
______________________
Today's LittleNip:
ARS POETICA
—Jane Blue
I could do nothing as well as she––
not journalism not gardening, not
patio-making, not furniture
restoration. All I had was
poetry, and there
I commented on the world,
dreamy, without a deadline, there
I made my garden, there I laid
down bricks, there
I made the furniture shine.
_____________________
—Medusa
Moonlight Slug
—Photo by Katy Brown
