What We Do For Love

First Daffodils

—Poems and Photos by Taylor Graham, Placerville, CA

GETTING THE POEM TO HEART

She lets the words sweep and arc
from lungs to lips, breeze through willow,
thrush song—

what comes next? this poem
black on white, written with a stranger’s
lifeblood. She imagines

the poet’s breath hovering
as she puts these lines to memory.
Out the window, traffic

punctuates the script in the wrong places
but she will learn its drift
to the soul, words of a people gone

from the land on which she sits
and sets each word ardent as heartbeat
uprooted, alive on the tongue.

 Fungus

LOVE BIRDS

February chill—
just listen to the bird song
tuning up for spring

he knows each bird song—
even when they’re all singing
different tunes at once

love-notes from the brain—
bird trills and human language,
verse natural as song

wind across the field,
two wild geese setting up nest—
a lone goose calls, calls

espresso warm-up
even in the coffee shop
poems are brewing

two lovers’ aubade—
on the cold shoulder to town,
where will they go now?

my dog solemnly
sniffed that heap of feathers—
a wild elegy

single mockingbird
singing for the love of song—
syllables? countless

have the birds tired
of living in haiku? just
listen to the crow

in another life
I heard the thrush—like a flute,
ethereal, gone

 Green Hearts

WHAT WE DO FOR LOVE

Remember how bison roamed
behind a fence above what used to be
Clarksville? Wild West confined but still
surviving. A man in rubber boots pitched hay
to his bison who, in the wild nature of beasts,
kept escaping their fences—as we kept
sheep who were always breaking free
to greener pastures. Hunger & desire compete
with woven stockwire, affection with pay-
check. The bison are gone. The bison man
used to play jazz guitar and croon at clubs
and steamer-bar until they switched to rock.
Like you used to sing ragtime-cowboy
to your dog, your sheep, the moon.

 Wild Rose in February

LEAFLESS WINTER

Understory below aspen, cedar and pine,
we never noticed wild-rose thickets, vying
prickle-to-thorn with blackberry bramble.
A trail cuts through leafless vine laced
with hard red lanterns lit with February sun.
Rose hips. A man approaches on the trail,
hands in pockets. He says, wild-rose is a stern
survivor. Pockets full of rose-hips, winter tea.

 February Woods

BEAUTIFUL OUTLAW
Scrub Jay: Aphelocoma coerulescens

Who’d guess he was so cool?
Execrated: bully, braggart, unpleasantly
pugnacious. Quirky, quizzical, bravura
personified. Yesterday he robbed
a nest, today he hangs by toenail talons
from the feeder. Cracked corn!

Intelligence is tested differently
in birds. Just quiz him without words.
To wit: how he very deftly hides
his pine-nuts for winter
in x-spots no other bird might see.

Black-masked blue air-looper. Jinx or
joker? Witness the funeral for his dead.
His blood-curdle alarm; the others
quit their foraging, converge—noisier
and noisier. Zenith of cacophonous grief?
Mere birds mourning their own? 

 Main Street Valentines

THE TRUTH ABOUT ROMEO

The soothsayer in her folds of drape
was rife with warning: Beware the man
who knocks with too many flowers
in his hands; who praises the stars
in your eyes—he’ll take you for a ride!

But it’s stuffy in here. Outside, trees
bud with spring. It makes a gelding
giddy, he strains against the lunge line.
Did you fail to mention, Romeo
is your daughter’s new riding horse?

Winter Scrub

Today’s LittleNip:

WILD WINTER FLOWERS
—Taylor Graham

In winter the bees sleep, they dream of flowers.
Coyote-bush calls them with its snowy blooms,
bright against the drab of chaparral in winter.
Coyote-bush hides in the hollows as worthless
scrub. The bees wake for love of coyote-bouquet.

__________________

Many thanks to Taylor Graham, who writes: "As I understand it, the form of 'Beautiful Outlaw' is a variant/outgrowth of those weird Oulipo constraints (invented by French mathematician/poets)." And the story of “What We Do For Love” is a true one; there was, not too long ago, a small herd of buffalo which was kept near Shingle Springs and which could be seen from the freeway.

This is a busy day in our area, poetry-wise, with Thursdays at the Central Library in Sacramento at noon, Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Cafe at 8pm (also in Sac.), and Poetry in Davis at John Natsoulas Gallery in Davis, also at 8pm. Scroll down to the blue column (under the green column at the right) for info about these and other upcoming poetry events in our area—and note that more may be added at the last minute.

—Medusa

 —Anonymous Photo
Celebrate poetry!

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