—Poems and Photos by Taylor Graham, Placerville, CA
BY THE BARK-HOUSE MEADOW
Here, earth springs
water of its own accord—
a moosh of mud this not-quite-spring
mixed with new grass
and fur of a fox who died last year,
leaving the harp of its ribs.
Sky is low this morning, wind
instead of bird-song in catkin willow.
Cedar-bark tepees sag heavy with wet
and the silent echo of drums,
pulse-beat of hands on buck’s hide.
Walk soft in mud to hear the music.
Here, earth springs
water of its own accord—
a moosh of mud this not-quite-spring
mixed with new grass
and fur of a fox who died last year,
leaving the harp of its ribs.
Sky is low this morning, wind
instead of bird-song in catkin willow.
Cedar-bark tepees sag heavy with wet
and the silent echo of drums,
pulse-beat of hands on buck’s hide.
Walk soft in mud to hear the music.
OUT OF PLACE
She asked you for directions, she’d lost
the trail. Only a few words between
you, disjointed like she’d left bits of herself
along the way and picked up new stuff
she couldn’t fit into her load. Off-balance
backpack that seemed to push her
forward against herself.
You were traveling light, daypack
plus a bag of litter—discards of hikers
and overnighters who didn’t want to carry it
out. Freeze-dry packaging, granola
wrappers, cellophane glittering like glass
on granite.
You’ve gotten good at
spotting what’s out of place. She was out
of place. You watched her disappear
toward Little Round Top, each step like
she was collecting litter of her self to stuff
in bags, to carry until she could heave it
in a trash can, travel light herself.
MIXED-UP MESS
Volunteers in boots and waders
drag garbage bags along the riverbanks;
others in wet suits disappear into the flow
like a school of black fish.
They’re combing the shore and fishing
the depths and crevices between rocks,
collecting trash. A cleansing, a blessing.
Tires, shopping carts, baby diapers,
dentures and smartphones, mattresses,
car batteries, cigarette butts, bowling pins,
half a pizza, a cappuccino machine.
Patiently the river has borne
our waste. At end of day, for a brief
moment, the river will be almost clean.
ASK PHOEBE
Spring. Taxes. 2 ½ hours of cyber-maze
& piles of old yr’s receipts, the blinding screen’s
scrim of numbers blending 1 into another.
You’re shut down. Walk outdoors.
Blue Oak’s leafless, its winter comforters
of grass growing without asking or taxing.
Black Phoebe hawks insects from garden-post
to Live Oak. All underfoot, green salad—
miner’s lettuce, Indian lettuce—who cares
for labels? Pick and eat it without sauce;
a morning’s labor—profits and losses,
a pesky bug which Sister Phoebe
snatches midair so gracefully
she blesses sky without a word.
“A GREAT TRAGEDY”
That’s what Dad would say, meaning
anything from losing a wheel over the cliff
on the road to Chitina, to running out
of shredded wheat for breakfast.
Another of his sayings: “Kids and paint
don’t mix,” as he dipped his brush
into a can of exterior gray.
I can hear him now, 30 years dead,
standing on our hill-crest, hands on hips,
surveying the mess of leafless oak canopy
intertwined with overhead lines
after a great Valley Oak toppled in storm.
“Trees and power lines don’t mix,”
he’d say. Is a day without electricity
“a great tragedy”? I think he’d reserve that
for loss of such a venerable oak—
its great trunk robed in greenest moss,
spirit of the rocky hillside.
BAMBOOZLE IS KITTEN
We named ours Latches.
Nothing is safe from his paws.
He sneaks onto my laptop and types:
swwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwg.
He steals pencil or pen and torments it
like a mouse. He unplugs my bread-machine
in the midst of making a loaf. He knocks
my lamp off the bedstead by yanking its pull-
chain, turning it on when he’s left alone
in the house. Everything mixed-up
is our kitten. No matter how I yell NO! he just
opens his big yellow eyes a little wider,
unlatching every door.
Latches
Today’s LittleNip:
WINTER OAKS
—Taylor Graham
Winter-gray oaks stand leafless,
reaching with bare twig-fingers.
Earth twitches underfoot, roots
grasping for tree-colony comfort.
Already an oak dreams
of buds at twig-tips blossoming.
______________________
Thank you, Taylor Graham, for sparkling poems on a grey day, including Latches’ progress into the cat-version of Terrible Twos, as well as news of spring greens from the hawkish Sister Phoebe!
Tonight’s poetry events in our area include two at 8pm: Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Cafe and Juice Bar in Sacramento, and Josh McKinney and Randy White at Poetry in Davis (John Natsoulas Gallery). Both include open mics. 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 (Celebrate Poetry!)
Sister Black Phoebe Gets to Work
—Anonymous Photo
—Anonymous Photo
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.
