Listening to Fragments

—Poems and Photos by Taylor Graham, Placerville, CA

VILLANELLE FOR PARADISE

You never wished the blazing but it came
down-canyon on a wind, the land so dry—
your vision changed forever in the flame.

It came so quick, the mountain was its claim—
the forest, field, home, market, school, blue sky.
You never wished the blazing but it came

a holocaust to take your house, your frame
of daily life. Nothing to do but fly,
your vision changed forever in the flame.

The one escape route jammed, one common aim,
thousands of you fleeing fire gone awry.
You never wished the blazing but it came

by night, by noontime midnight-dark—the same
smoke-ember-ash on wind that will not die.
Your vision changed forever in the flame.

With family and two dogs—the old one lame—
none of the sure assurances apply.
You never wished the blazing but it came,
your vision changed forever in the flame.

_________________

ANCIENT MUSE

Ghost-writer
of her disaster-prone homeland—
flood, drought, wildfire, earthquake
ruins written on her face
wrinkled like a berry left on the vine
written in tiny pictograms
one page of loose-leaf binder
in her hands
one of many binders
piled about her like a wall
against wind blowing dead leaves
from her homeland
by odysseys of survival
ageless migrations of peoples
to this very path
where I kneel listening to fragments
speech softer than wind
tattered through teeth
wind burdened with ash of lives
stories escaping the skull,
brain in bone to hold us together.

THE BARN STILL STANDS

Myriad ripples
on the pond, the kingfisher

scanning from above….
       water quality samples
       show traces of sodium.
Here landscape maintains
its broad views of ranching days,
the empty old barn,
       rock rubble of mining claims
       and encroaching star-thistle.
Spirits of those who
lived here so far from city
lights, a lonely peace.…
       we call them ghosts of the past
       for solace or for guidance.

ROADSIDE BARN

Creak open the door, it’s dark inside, heavy
with years of foddering and sleeping beasts.
No cattle or horses now. The old barn’s shut
but not air-tight. Gaps between boards, and
hayloft door, moon staring ghost-light down
on spider’s web—macabre husks of sucked-dry
flies. On the floor, owl pellets full of bone
fragments and fur, proof of life’s encounters
in a barn that looks, from the outside, dead.

TO HEAR HIM TELL IT

The old waystation barn was plastered
with handbills, maybe Wanted posters of wild
west days, and that famous ad for Pony Express
riders “orphans preferred.” In his time
there were ranch hands on the bunkhouse porch
waiting to drive the cattle to summer meadows.
Where’s the old barn now? I guess it lives
in memory for as long as he does,
maybe even in a poem.

BRAVE WITH SONG

In front of the library she sang to me
songs carried down generations from land
to land through fire and drought.

She sang to me in such a high thin voice
the songs of Protection.
I listened and left for the errands of my life.

She sang but I took too long,
listening to news of wildfires on TV,
our sky turning lethal with smoke.

Surely she sang until someone
took her in out of pity, she was so old
and tough-frail, still singing.

She’s gone. In the hollow of my ear
she sings as she climbs Treasure Mountain,
crosses the Moat of the Cosmos,

still singing. I hear her pass into the mouth
of her grandmother.
Through the door that is my eye

I see she’s singing as she passes
down a dirt path without end, singing
as she becomes dust of the road she walks.

Today’s LittleNip:

REMNANTS   
—Taylor Graham

behind where they do
business, one pedestal and
a pile of rubble

off-site fire-plug
waits entwined with dead grasses
ready for fire

one old willow tree
on the hill and one old barn
witness what is gone

_________________________

 

Our thanks to Taylor Graham for today’s fine poems and photos as she tells us about ghost-writers and old barns and those who are brave with song—because of course poetry and all the other arts sing to us. And thanks also to Chris Moon for the fine barn photo posted below on this Thanksgiving Day, 2018.

—Medusa, wishing you a peaceful Thanksgiving on this, the anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s passing.

 —Photo by Chris Moon
(Celebrate poetry!)

Photos in this column can be enlarged by
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.