By Flashlight
—Poems and Photos by Taylor Graham, Placerville, CA
WHAT DOES THE MOON THINK?
She’s right there staring darkly down
as we watch the sun begin to dim, our whole
attention focused on light dissolving.
Is she afraid sun’s flame will truly disappear
behind her back, her own face casting no light?
Already our steps come quieter and quieter
as night vanquishes morning. No sound
of shatter as our boots tread on sun-crescents
pale as moon-glow. Why should the moon
worry? She’s seen this so often; so many
moon-lovers briefly fixated on her sun. Soon
it will pass. Our dreams so easily
shadowed. Last night I dreamed of your boot-
laces. And look, now they’ve come
undone, frayed like twine from stepping
on crescents of sun maybe jinxed by moon.
Boulder
ANCIENT AIRS
Bluebirds pecked berries from mistletoe
of a dying oak, its roots dug into
frost-heave, decomposing granite recomposing
tree and late-day shadow. On that lichened
boulder, half a mushroom-cap left
uneaten by a squirrel. Coyote scat laced
with manzanita berries and fur, fragments
of bone: what was left of gray squirrel.
When I first found that rock, lost in labyrinths
of manzanita, I imagined it sacred
to the Indians who used to summer there—
who lived there first. Bedrock mortars
in canyon shadow. And my boulder—was it
ceremonial stone? Now I think it may
have been a talking rock for sending messages
across miles of granite. Warnings,
invitations. A singing stone. I imagined
I could hear earth turn its worms through soil—
or was it blood running rabbit-trails
in my ears; tinnitus of aging?
News on the breeze across ridges before
air slips downslope to dark. Granite speech
that might reach me miles down the mountain,
still among stone.
Door in Wall
DOOR IN THE WALL
I lived there for a certain time,
watering the tree at the edge of lawn,
keeping house and dogs but not a word of
poetry. The tree—what kind was it?—
did poorly. The lawn was summer-brown.
I’d drive my dogs far up into the forest
to hike. Then I moved away; driving past,
I saw the tree had died. I never noticed
a door in the rock-wall built to keep lawn
from falling into the road. Was a door there
all the time? If a door, then a hole,
a place where maybe poetry lived inside.
I never let it out, never walked it
in the forest. The tree I watered, but
didn’t name, has died.
Blacksmith
BLACK BART AT THE STAMP MILL
Gold Bug Park
He was all in 19th-century black, except for
the white pillowcase protruding from beneath
his hat. Haunting, this Gold Rush highwayman
poet, dressed for spooking, eve of Halloween.
He handed me his calling card—spotless white
handkerchief still bearing the laundry-mark
that led to his arrest. Coal smoke drifted blackly
from a smithy above the old stamp mill.
All black—vest, trousers, dapper moustache.
Only white was the pillowcase he wore cowled
from crown to collar. Black Bart in person.
When no one else was looking, he pulled
the pillowcase over his face, looked at me eye-
level through slits of mask. Clear steel-blue
intensity—his eyes, his life story. Stay, his eyes
said. Listen. He was alive in that story. I
suspended disbelief. I don’t rob anyone except
Wells Fargo. Did he rob a stagecoach here,
I wanted to know? Yes; well… no. Black Bart
was everywhere. The golden Motherlode.
And right now, here. Handkerchief fresh-
laundered from his last holdup, Nov. 3, 1883;
Po8 verse to prove it. Most courteous of bandits
dressed poetically in black, to the tip of his hat.
Blackberries
PEREGRINE PREACHER
for C.C. Peirce
A good solid grip on his staff, and he’s off—
hat or none; he has his heaven and its weather—
down a ridge to where the vista broadens
over river canyon. Great boulders grumble
in the flow. He’ll listen until it sounds
like psalming, so many tongues of praise.
Happy the feet that are walking through this
creation—Placerville to Georgetown,
on to Cool and then Coloma, all on foot,
all a part of the live transmission, whether
in church or under sky. No stained-glass
to taint pure daylight. This whole world’s
temple and nothing’s more delectable
to a traveler than blackberries ripe with August.
Sunflower
WHITE STAR
He wore it everywhere, any sort of weather.
Old West Victorian top hat, black with an 8-inch
crown and a big white star. Wouldn’t say
where he got it—he never could afford. Maybe
he stole it, maybe found it in a pawn shop.
He wore it indoors and out regardless. Never
minded the white of etiquette. Fancy words
no more than courtesies to a wolf. Spent hours
waving that hat in front of the flighty head-
shy piebald somebody gave him that nobody else
could ride. White star in the middle of its
midnight forehead. He waved his hat
till the pony’d stand stock-still no matter how
he waved up a thunderstorm. Peculiar dark
between them, he and White Star inseparable
as man and his hat. One day they took off
west past sunset without a trace. Never came
back. Rode off into starry night, I guess.
___________________
Today’s LittleNip:
OUTSTRETCHED
rubáiyát
I was searching the totem of the place—
its boggy wetlands greening in the grace
that blankets meadows with a tangled edge,
a buzz of bugs, music of quiet space.
No pesticides, no messing up live genes
to poison land that generously greens
with mud and scat and scent of rich decay.
No gears and the exhaust of their machines.
How to invoke a spirit to withstand,
to soothe my mind and still the restless hand?
A shadow passed—a great blue heron spread
a blessing with its deep wing of the land.
____________________
Many thanks to Taylor Graham for today’s fine poems and pix! For more about the rubáiyát, see:
•••thepoetsgarret.com/2010Challenge/form12.html
•••www.baymoon.com/~ariadne/form/rubaiyat.htm
•••classicalpoets.org/how-to-write-a-rubaiyat-with-examples
And here are three more resources to add to your list of types of poetry forms:
•••Poets Garret: www.thepoetsgarret.com
•••Society of Classical Poets: classicalpoets.org/category/poetry-forms
•••Poetry at Adriadne's Web: www.baymoon.com/~ariadne
Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Cafe takes place at 1414 16th St. in Sacramento tonight, 8pm, with featured readers and lots of open mic. Scroll down to the blue column (under the green column at the right) for info about this and other upcoming poetry events in our area—and note that more may be added at the last minute.
—Medusa
Celebrate Poetry!
(Anonymous Photo)
Photos in this column can be enlarged by clicking on them once,
then click on the X in the top right corner to come back
to Medusa.
