Spirit Guides

—Poems and Photos by Taylor Graham, Placerville, CA

SPIRIT GUIDES

Fox was messenger on the land
till traffic paved her child to centerline.
Her vixen scream tore morning
apart, and by twilight she was gone.
Annual grasses died
at the entrance to her boulder-den,
between driveway and creek.
Wild plum dropped its stony fruit.

Now deer has come, dropping her babe
at edge of weedy lawn.
Her presence by glimpses, parable
of scattered words, pages shredded by mice
for their nests. Doe is silhouette,
dual-ear antennae tuned,
keeping her distance,
keeping me always in her sight.

FIGMENT

Over sunburned landscape
between dark trees—a sudden flight

camo-creature glimpsed. Out
of sight—the fawn! failing light.

I shift position—focus—there
sunburn camo svelte & keen at alert

long ears receptors aimed at
me —sudden flight. divergent vector.

Jackrabbit? hispid hare? Gone.
Fawn or jack? fawn then jack?

Figments of failing vision or
vision too flighty-keen? Lacking

daylight, imagination’s never tamed.
Unknown wild I wish to name.

DEBRIEF

In the space between dream and waking
waiting for daylight, you see him,
robed in dark at edge of gorge. Horizon’s
smokestack filling sky with storm.
A truckload of thunder—river booming,
or the heavens?
A man you searched for, no one found.
Birthday candle extinguished.
Did he become river?
You wake in the dark room and,
in your heart, I find the owl
who knows all names.

WAITING FOR DAYLIGHT

I can’t explain the siren pressing me
from behind, stranger in an AMBULANCE
spelled backwards for my rearview mirror.
I can’t explain how 8 warning arrows
appeared overnight in duplicate back to back,
planted like crosses in my right-of-way,
and the skunk dead on centerline
diffusing its scent on summer air.
I can’t explain waiting for daylight
that doesn’t make the answers clear.

WILD TURKEY PARADE

She leads her brood from weedy lawn
to shady pebble-deck, pecking, peck-pecking.
Seven young turkeys learning our land—
where the best acorns are, the bugs and worms.
They don’t spend long anywhere.
The mother leaps up on wrought-iron railing,
surveys in all directions. This is her
territory. Is she the one whose nest was raided
in April on the backside of our hill?
Did she have better luck on a second try?
Has she come to show off her gangly children?
They might be creatures of prehistory,
grazing lush savannah. But it’s dry here,
late June. Already they’re gone, out of sight.
Next time I look, they’re gazing through
sliding glass door at Loki on dog-alert
and Latches in feline crouch.
Turkey knows the bounds of territory.
She fans her tail just like a tom,
and then she’s gone.

INVITATION

Walking in summer-green
the backside of my hill, I saw
the sorrel mare across
our country two-lane. I stopped,
looked. Hello, Beautiful.
She moved in my direction.
I took a step closer. Beautiful
you are. Another step,
she nodded. One foot closer,
I half-bowed.
I wish I knew your name.
Two fences, two lanes of chip-
seal. I wish
I could take you on the trail.
She began a circle dance
stately as dressage
windrowed in hayfield
on a windy hill.
Traffic whipped between us.
She gazed into my distance
as I turned back toward home.

 Three Volunteers

Today’s LittleNip:

WAKAMATSU FARM FEST
—Taylor Graham   

Leafhoppers abound
among festival-goers,
multitudes of bugs
landing on our happi sleeves
green as fields of festive spring.

____________________

—Medusa, with thanks this July 4th to Taylor Graham for her poems today, sharp as fireworks, cool as a summer breeze . . .

 —Anonymous Photo, reminding us to celebrate the eagle, 

celebrate the flag, celebrate Lady Liberty

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.

Age is a Cracker Jack Box

—Poems and Photos by Michael Lee Johnson, Itasca, IL

CRACKER JACK BOX POEM

I don’t wear my pocket watch anymore
it reminds me of my age, 73, soon more,
outdated gadget, time hanging where
moving parts below don’t belong nor work anymore.
I don’t like to think about endings.
Age is a Cracker Jack box with no face, modern speed dial,
no toy inside, when it stops, no salute, just pops.

Lesson:  "What young men want to do all night takes older men all night to do."

 Young Couple at the Heart Attack Greasy Grill

YOUNG COUPLE
@ HEART ATTACK GREASY GRILL

I was a little boy,
tad hillbilly son,
patterned then in
present tense,
hardly old enough
tall enough to work
nor notice if I had pubic hair—
large or small endowment
growing up self-conscious
about short comings
narrow chest.

Just a teen-aged nighttime boy
looking 4 a part-time hook up—
little girl play, with a five-card stud.

Preacher daddy raised me,
back-seat Christian boy
low on faith, high on doobie
rolled cigarettes.

I took my 1st job, pancake flipper
@ Heart Attack Greasy Grill, 24-7
pocket coins 4 tips, a few greasy dollars,
pancake short stack, secret menu was that
boss’s daughter, blood on hands,
my bun busted now stale, stained, & baked.
Eliminate lines unessential:
waitress injected me some spice
old time recipe.

UNKNOWN POET FROM RUE MONTPELIER

I warned you darts with advice
strong words tripping over emotions
like an imbecile—
so you think you’re Leonard Cohen
loving some naked Nancy in a cluttered
matchbox apartment overlooking
European culture simulated,
above some obscure narrow
Montreal street?

For your information,
straight poetics from insanities Almanac,
Leonard Cohen died years ago
in a twisted pickle poem he
entitled “Narcissism.”

Do you and your welfare lover
desire to be the 2nd generation,
deceased, unnoticed, unheard of,
unwarranted for failure artists
inside this thin, onion-skinned wall
dingy with your dreams?
I warned you darts with advice,
tapering off with your impotence.

 South Chicago Denizen

Today’s LittleNip:

SOUTH CHICAGO NIGHT
—Michael Lee Johnson

Night is drifters,
sugar rats, street walkers, pickpockets, pimps,
insects, Lake Michigan perch,
neon signs blinking, half the bulbs
burned out.

__________________

Welcome back to the Kitchen, Michael Lee Johnson, and thanks for your lively poems and photos this morning!

—Medusa, celebrating poetry!

 —Anonymous Neon

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.
 

Time is a Shadow

Wondering

—Poems and Original Artwork by Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA

WATER MAN

All day
he traces his findings into poetry,

his long and patient journeys
into what he knows and seeks to know.

This time he is a fisherman, standing
in patient loneliness while all around him

the sudden mouths of fish sing to his effort
and make him weep and fail.

How many mermaids
have offered him their souls . . . ?

He rewards their memory by saying
all their names on other shores.

What a soft shadow he makes
at twilight; small against the immensity;

small against the sky;
small against the swift night

which is never surprised
to find him there.

____________________

AS IF I AM MY GHOST NOW

I am all memory. I am small. I am in the house of round-
ness. Rooms swallow me even as I enter another of them.
Walls mute my meaning with their own importance. As
long as I dream, I may stay here, season after season of my
life. I am the child of darkness. Daylight frightens me. I
stand away from windows with their harsh reflections. No
one else has ever lived here. How have I created this out
of my mother’s endless escape from every threat of rooted-
ness. My doll sits on a couch facing me with accusation.
Its arms out-stretch… outstretch… but I can never cross
the distance it takes to get to her. I am the doll. I am the
distance. I never find myself.

 Quiet Hours

THE GREEN LANDSCAPE
After Morning by Gregory Kondos

The paint has not dried—will never dry
under the layer upon layer

of the artist’s revisions,
there is only the wide green land

with the suggestion of a house
among trees—after half a century

the house still there, pulled back
in a frame of time—around it,

the unpopulated fields
with the gold splashes of sunshine,

the wide clear sky drifting over,
the day’s shadows taking their time.

 The Day

THE NEUTRAL CALENDAR

These calendar days go by so slow they trace
the hours with a broken minute-hand.
Whatever lays its shadows on the land
must—in the morning—all of them erase.

And who knows whence the presence of the vase
so thickly draining—measured with wet sand—
the calendar days going by so slow they trace
the hours with a broken minute-hand.

And no one knows who turns the calendar page
as if that’s not for us to understand.
Time is a shadow—and it has no face—
and, shadow-like, must all of time erase.
These calendar days go by so slow they trace
the hours with a broken minute-hand.

 Sun Spots

CONSIDER A SUMMER CHAIR

Consider a summer chair
against a white wall,

the way its shadow plays
against the moving light,

the way the hour seems
to barely crawl,

the way the daylight
barely changes

though a chill sets in
and shudders on the white
illusioned warmth awhile
where sunlight

tries to linger
as the shadows win,

and as the season changes,
you surprise

an early shiver
and go in.

__________________

THE UNINTERRUPTED MOMENT

She stood in gray daylight
in shifting shadow,
in ritual of en-
durance…
nev-
er
mind
that it rained…
that the hour was
leaning into darkness…
she motioned the world by…

 Window Light

MODEL IN SOFT WINDOW LIGHT

How round she is in day’s soft window-light,
bending her arms above her head,
her hands in her hair,
her face a mask of pleasure—
her whole self anointed by tender shadow.
How round she is, her soft fat pleasing
to the room’s dim eye—
her belly—her thighs—the width of her hips—
her eyes soft, looking toward the daylight.

How round, how round, her round self
posing for some admiring camera
made of love for her—adoring, adoring
her roundness, the soft touch of her hair
through her hands, the way she sits on the floor
by the window.

How round the hour that holds her like this—
a safe round hour that will move slowly
around her—slowly like a look of pleasure.
For this she wills herself to be beautiful—
never self conscious—never shy.

__________________

KITCHEN DAY-DREAM

Wrapped in music, she goes deep—
goes deep into her own

composing heart :
how long ago is love . . . ?

how far away is time . . . ?
She finds a place to be.

Her eyes glaze
to a distant stare.

Someone is there, evolving into
a commiserate sadness.

They embrace. The music dies away
and leaves them there.

 Picking Hops

THEY TELL IT LIKE IT WAS

It’s not as if they spun the daylight down—
dizzy with love’s sweet vertigo—and young,
—brash as children—but he broke his crown

and she forgot the little song she’d sung
and they forgave themselves their little folly :
how they tumbled ; how they wept and clung,

—he as hero. She could not stay jolly.
There was no metaphoric pail of water—
no such chore. He had heard a volley :

War, he whispered : she was someone’s daughter;
he a wayward son, and they rewrote their story,
and there was one more lesson that he taught her :

Love is full of tears and war is gory,
and if they’d told the truth, they would be sorry.

_____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

DAYLIGHT

finally
comes
searching
down the trees
forcing back
the tight shadows
and finding,
under the blanket-leaves
left by the sparrows,
huddled in their tiny prayers,
the lost children.

—Joyce Odam

____________________

Thank you, Joyce Odam, for your fine poems and photos today as we sail into July! No storms, little heat, lots of poetry: life in our area is good right now. We are very lucky.

Our new Seed of the Week is “Remembering July 4”. I remember going to the old State Fair and watching the fireworks. I was always afraid sparks would fall on me and set me on fire. Other families had BBQs, fireworks at home, etc. I always find, though, that people in our area love to write about the old, so atmospheric, State Fair; so, steal my idea if you’d like. (Photos, too!) Send your poems, photos & artwork about this (or any other) subject to kathykieth@hotmail.com. No deadline on SOWs, though, and for a peek at our past ones, click on “Calliope’s Closet”, the link at the top of this column, for plenty of others to choose from.

Alan Lowe of Lincoln writes that the 2019 Voices of Lincoln Contest deadline is July 20. For information and registration forms, go to www.lincolnca.gov/Home/Components/News/News/2506/2267?backlist=%2fcity-hall%2fdepartments-divisions%2flibrary/.

Tonight from 5-7pm, Poetry Off-the-Shelves read-around in El Dorado Hills takes place at the EDH Library. 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.

—kk

 —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.

For Every Seat . . .

—Photo by Carol Louise Moon, Placerville

LEGAL SIZE
—Ann Privateer, Davis, CA

The streets 

The malls


The open spaces
Fly spineless faces
Past the landlord's
Grimace, his references
Built a presence
A holdings indifferent
to the sobs.

_________________


WINE BAGS
—Ann Privateer

battle a bottle full of lies
chairs become exercise
equipment, more to finance


less to kill time hardily.

MAGIC BULLETS VS. KRYPTONITE
—Joseph Nolan, Stockton, CA

A poet’s pencil
Runs to stubble
Slipping off the page,

Magic bullets
Sometimes
Just bounce off.

Maybe it’s kryptonite
And super isn’t
Super anymore?

What’s left in store
For Batman
And the Joker

If magic bullets
Are not magic
Anymore?

_________________

A MATTER OF GREAT 

ACADEMIC INTEREST
—Joseph Nolan

Someone captured
The essence
Of something
Entirely new,
Fabulous, inspiring,
A brilliant innovation,
In a jar,
Put a label on it,
Stored it on a shelf,
And kept it
From going
Anywhere.

Professors from nearby
Universities
Were invited to
Come take a look.
Several of them
Wrote a book
About this genius-wonder.
The book was bound in leather,
And stored on a shelf
Just below the jar.

The authors received a prize.
A museum was constructed
In which to house the jar
And the book.
People came
From near and far
To shake the jar
To hear
What was in it,
But nothing ever came of it,
Except for that.
Nevertheless, it remained a matter
Of great academic interest. 

DRIVING ASSERTIVELY
—Joseph Nolan

When you yield
The field
Your fate is sealed.

You will be cut off
From the
Newly forming line.

It puts you behind
Where you wanted to go
Because you were
A little too slow
Or a little too cautious.

So remember to butt
Your car into line
When changing lanes
If you have the time
To get ahead
Of the ones
Behind you,
Closing faster.

If they ram you,
It’s their disaster.

__________________

FOR EVERY SEAT THERE’S AN ASS
—Joseph Nolan
 
Get this shit off my lot!
You know I hired you
To sell this shit,
So get it off of my lot!

I don’t care what you gotta do.
I don’t care what you gotta say.
Just get this shit
Off of my lot,

‘Cause I don’t make no money
If there are no sales
And each customer
Is an ass for a seat;
For every seat
There’s an ass.

YOU MAY KISS THE BRIDE
—Caschwa, Sacramento, CA

Funny how that can happen
I guess the groom got my
ride to the tavern where I was
going to shoot pool with the
guys and have a few beers,

and I got his ride here to the
altar, deposited right on the
threshold to eternal bliss,
that magical kiss, tonight we
will consummate….

Don’t cry, he’ll be just fine,
likely to meet a darling at the
tavern who will fill his heart
with love and tenderness,

Oh wait, do you have a
couple bucks I can give to
the driver?

________________

DON’T TILT THE TILL
—Caschwa

We see the sparkling photos of
West Point Black Women Graduates
proudly and neatly tucked into one frame
like small coins in a cash drawer
that never quite touch the large bills

What will our descendants see? 

AWAITING DAYLIGHT
—Caschwa

Elementary school: at the time, very little
been there, done that.

Hebrew school: prep for Bar Mitzvah (today
you are a man, be very careful how you go
about proving it).

Junior high school: definitely founded on the
rules of royalty, steadfastly serving the agenda
of bullies.

Senior high school: backpacks loaded with
knowledge that can only be accessed with
passwords that have not yet been invented.

About 2 weeks after graduation: close family
members told me I was in a coma for 10 days
following a bad motorcycle crash, but I was still
too out of it to know who they were, or why I had
to keep a very thick bandage in place on my
thumb. (I later learned from a casual chat with a
first responder that my thumb had been reattached.)

College: a roomful of kids see an accomplished
professor struggle with the new technology.

Sometime later: I had an early morning paper
route and welcomed first light as the bearer of
the good news that I was almost done and soon
would be sitting at one of my favorite eateries
enjoying breakfast.

The future: just have faith the sun will rise again.
(Even White House staff couldn’t find the light
switches.) 

“COLLECTING FOR THE TIMES”
—Caschwa

(an obvious aping of “The Charge of
the Light Brigade” by Alfred Lord
Tennyson)


I.
Half a house, half a house,
Half a house onward,
All in the valley of Debt
Strode the collector
“Forward the List Past Due!
Charge for the paper!” he said.
Into the valley of Debt
Strode the collector.

II.
“Forward the List Past Due!”
Was there a debt unpaid?
Not though the collector knew
Someone had blundered.
His not to make reply
His not to reason why
His but to do and try
Into the valley of Debt
Strode the collector.

III.
Refusal to right of him,
Refusal to left of him,
Refusal in front of him
Whiner and heckler;
Stormed at with curse and yell,
Boldly he strode and well,
Into the jaws of Debt,
Into the mouth of hell
Strode the collector.

IV.
Flashed all his numbers bare,
Flashed as they singed his hair
Debating with debtors there,
Charging a conspiracy, while
All the world lectured.
Plunged in the denial-smoke
Right through the truth they broke;
Foreign and domestic
Reeled while the numbers spoke
Shuttered by conjecture.
Then they retreated, but not
Not the collector.

V.
Refusal to right of him,
Refusal to left of him,
Refusal behind him
Whiner and heckler;
Stormed at with curse and yell,
Unanswered chiming door bell
He that had tried so well
Came through the jaws of Debt
Back from the mouth of hell,
All that was left of him,
Left of the collector.

VI.
When can his glory fade?
O the wild charge he made!
All the world conjectured.
Honour the payments of a few!
Honour the List Past Due,
Noble collector!

Today’s LittleNip:

FORM FIGHT
—Caschwa

An accountant adds the numbers
top to bottom, bottom up
whilst the artist in him slumbers,
begging coffee for his cup

Just take your average sonnet
put the rhyming words aside
affix a title on it
hark, the core that hasn’t died

When all is copasetic
double underscore what counts
for a rhyme alone is not poetic:
don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that bounce

_____________________

A sunny July 1 thank-you to our skillful contributors today, including photographs from Carol Louise Moon, who writes that “It is a series of public trash cans designed after old-fashioned canning labels from the Fidalgo Island Packing Co. We are seeing these all over Anacortes, WA, while on vacation.” Colorful!

Poetry events this week start with Sac. Poetry Center’s Hot Poetry in the Park! at an earlier time, 6:30-8pm, with Jenny Lynn and Jeanette Sem plus open mic. On Tuesday, Poetry Off-the-Shelves read-around in El Dorado Hills takes place from 5-7pm at the EDH Library.

SPC workshops this week include Tuesday Night Workshop for critiquing of poems at the Hart Center (27th and J Sts.) on Tuesday, 7:30-9pm (call Danyen Powell at 530-681-0026 for info); and MarieWriters Generative Writing Workshop at SPC for writing poems, 6-8pm on Wednesday, facilitated this week by Laura Rosenthal.

On Friday (instead of the usual Thursday), Poetry in Davis presents Nebraska Poet Laureate Matt Mason at John Natsoulas Gallery in Davis, 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, celebrating!

 —Anonymous Road Sign

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.
 

The Storm

—Poem by Michael H. Brownstein, Jefferson City, MO

ONE OF MY FAVORITE PLACES
            (for Todd and his store, TNT)

Is this a TNT moment,
a stick of dynamite to tear down the entire thing too close to the river,
a rambling set of shacks and one large water-logged warehouse?

It’s near New Year’s,
too close to last Christmas,
and he tells us he will be opened on the holiday, maybe.

We might pilgrimage to his front door
over the large expanse of bridge, a wide highway,
then a right turn onto a smaller blacktop road leading to the airport.

We will not be seeking the planes.
We have no need for helicopters.
We will enter his establishment of everything but TNT.

And we will stay awhile.
It is never too cool inside or too hot.
Water drips from tarps and gutter holes.

Pathways go from wood to nails to screws—a hundred kinds of screws—
a hundred kinds of nails—a hand-built model of a ship rigged in string
and everywhere books for sale by the pound.

Go in with nothing and come out with something.
Enter at your own risk.
Nothing costs so much you cannot afford to purchase it here.

So it gets on into the late afternoon,
the sun crowded out by evening clouds and a bird or two,
the surprise of dynamite is, it is so loud.

___________________

ONE OF MY FAVORITE PLACES, PART 2
                 (for Todd)

In the spring, the rains came and did not come,
but the melting snow from up north and thunderstorms
jammed into the narrow straits of the Missouri
eating its land on either side, slipping over levees,
an appetite so great it took over so much—
and right before the tornado of 2019 hit my town,
the Missouri threw off every caution it had,
entered TNT one sunny afternoon—we were there—
and the waters slipped in and through, crossed
the nearby road, flooded the airport on the other side,
and as police began blocking streets, we scattered
into cars to cross the only way out to safety. Todd,
forced to leave, locked his fence and followed.

When he came back, when the street was partially opened,
when the blockades were lifted so a survey of damage
could be completed, we called him. I'm on my kayak,
he told us, inside the store. We asked if he needed help.
No, he said, don't come. The stench is unforgiving,
my fence is down and broken, there is still a current.
A few days later we came anyway, surveyed what was left,
the fence on the ground, his parking lot gut-shot and potholed,
but the water was down, his kayak no longer floating,
and he had help lifting the destroyed to a place of debris,
gathering undamaged items—almost everything had damage—
to the safety of shelving. Here, he said, you need a mask,
and be careful, he said, some of the rooms are haunted.
Water moccasins and other breathing things. I have not
been brave enough to chase them away. We bought
tile from him. He told us, I'm OK for now, but I'll let you know
when I'm not, and we told him, We're here. Let us know what
needs to be done. The city came by then, dumping gravel
on the other side of the street where the roadway
had washed away, where the grass grew mud brown, where
a huge water moccasin rose up, looked our way and dived.

___________________

Our thanks to Michael Brownstein as he continues to write to us about the tornado that came through his town of Jefferson City, Missouri, just before midnight on May 23. He writes, "...the tornado has passed, we're still cleaning up. In the end there were two fatalities. The flood from the Missouri River hit us a week before the tornado and became really bad over the next two weeks. Now—almost a month later—the water is receding, but quite a lot of the other side of the river really smells badly. Todd is a friend who owns TNT, a warehouse that was under water. Water moccasins are in his back rooms and all over his outdoor shelters.

“I was by there yesterday to see how I could help out, but I didn't bring a mask or gloves or even boots, so I was fairly useless. Anyway here's a poem I wrote 'way before the flood for him—he has not seen it yet.”

Since his first poem was written before the storm, I asked Michael to write about the water moccasins and damage to TNT, so that’s Part II—in other words, a commission about all this intense imagery! (Thanks, Michael. It’s awesome!) And we on this side of the States will be thinking about you and your family (and Todd!) in the weeks ahead.

—Medusa, celebrating the weathering of the storm

 Water Moccasin, 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.

One Page At A Time

—Poems by James Lee Jobe, Davis, CA
—Photos Courtesy of James Lee Jobe

Spring returns to my valley with green plants, breezes, and blue skies. A flowering begins, almost as if life here is following an invisible schedule. And so it is. And so are we.


______________________

The Sacramento Valley, it can seem so empty
And vast that even this rain could never fill it.
See now as this storm stretches out
From day into night, and into another day.

______________________

Huge, flat, long, and wide, often the Sacramento Valley seems much lonelier than I ever am, even though at that moment I might be standing where the valley and I are totally alone. Flat land, empty sky, and a man.

Was I a man? Did I lift the fruit
   up
To heaven like a treasure to be offered?
Did I do more good than harm?
Am I forgiven for what harm I did
   cause?
Shall I forgive myself?

Was I a man? Did I connect the earth
To the sky with the length of my
   body?
Leave only footprints that fade with
   the rains?
Did I nourish, teach, help, give?
Did I learn how to truly receive?

Was I a man? Yes. And at the end

I can face myself without shame.

____________________

Looking
 up at precisely the right second
To
 see a mockingbird fly by my window.
How
 lovely, how perfect,
And
 I stopped writing my poem
To
 begin writing this one,
And
 to give thanks
For
 the marvelous randomness
Of
 life.
 

I can’t explain the wind, and why bother trying? Like us, it begins somewhere and ends somewhere else. Always traveling, and in a hurry. Does the wind need a reason? No, it just is. Outside just now, the wind felt fine touching my face. And I am not traveling anywhere, I'm staying right here. Why? I just am.

__________________

A break now from the winter rains;
Perhaps a few days or a week
Of sunshine. A couple of hours
Past sunrise, wild finches
Peck in my yard and on the patio.
I give them names and address them so,
But they are far too wise to care.

What is it to be a human? Well, we have love, sorrow, laughter, and music. And tools, language, and the craft of culture, among other things.  And like all beings, we have the cycles of being alive, the cycles of life. Just as I wrote that, a lovely breeze blew in through the open window.

_________________

The Sierra Nevada Mountains,
The eastern wall of the Sacramento Valley,
Dates back to the Paleozoic.
Now, that’s a lot older than this Valley Oak
I am sitting under. Two hundred million years
Against maybe two hundred years, but still
This old oak feels just as timeless to me.
How deep are these roots?
How deep are mine?
Some of my son’s ashes sit here in this valley,
Like this oak, passing time, and in time
My own ashes will join them.
That’s life.
Time. The mountains. The valley.
What goes on.
 

A high-school boy asked me today about Zen.
“Things should make more sense,” he said, and,
“I feel like I might be asleep… all the time.”
I told him how to meditate, maybe
Two minutes of instruction, period.
He said he would try, and set off to order
A copy of Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind.
It’s the first day of autumn, officially,
But here in the valley that means little.
A truly hot day. Walking outside,
I watched the sky for a few minutes.
Vapor trails from endless jets
But also this, a turkey vulture circled,
On the hunt. At a distance
It can be hard to tell them from hawks,
But for some reason I felt sure.
The turkey vulture and the boy.
Both hunting, but for different kinds of food.
Meat for one, reality for the other.
May they both be fed.
May they both be well.
Life is a book, my friend,
And we can only read one page at a time.
Gasshō.

_____________________

Today’s LittleNip:
 
No one to be seen, and no one to see me; this valley farmland goes on and on. Peace. The sun at noon, crops growing in the warm light. As far as the eye can see.

—James Lee Jobe

_____________________

Good morning and our thanks to James Lee Jobe for his poems encouraging us to wake up! Gasshō, James.

A reminder that tomorrow (June 30) is the deadline for submissions to the up-coming issue of Sacramento Voices 2019 from Cold River Press. For info, see www.coldriverpress.com/.

And today at 2pm is the second installment of the new reading series, Creative Minds, at Gos Art Gallery in Sacramento on Del Paso Blvd. 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, celebrating poetry!  

 Gasshō: A Mudra of Coming Together
—Anonymous Artwork

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.

Looking Beyond Surfaces

Mug and Buckeye

—Poems and Photos by Carol Louise Moon, Placerville, CA

LIQUID ILLUSION

Intent on gleaning secrets I could see
my own reflection, instead of the marine
life in this tide pool—its surface intoning,
pulsating—insisting on its own rhythm,
insinuating my face between its depth
and my inquisitive mind.  In this instant,
I realized I must look beyond surfaces,
incessant distractions.  I plunged my bare
face into the pool, invasive in my efforts
to discover its unique interpretations—
its immense treasure—its soul.

 Sea Stars

OUR TEACHER OF BIOLOGY

Barnacles had the look of cupcakes
to her, and sometimes “mini Martian
volcanoes,” she said.  But barnacles
were never strange to her as she
wrapped up in woolens by the sea.

We knew her to be a little strange,
single-minded, and in her older years
very eccentric.  When she spoke of
barnacles her eyes peered and leered
as if gazing into a tide pool.
“Nothing matters to barnacles but
water,” she said as if all she saw
up close could be summed up in a
simple statement. 

It is the observer of marine life who
must learn the difference between
breathing water and breathing air,
between facts of truth and facts of
conscience.  She taught like the best,
by offering herself and her own
observations.  And the student must
search and know according to his
conscience.

We see her now turning a shell over
and over in her delicate hands.  We
remember her lectures, her upturned
lips, her scanty brow, her squinting
and peering as if gazing into a tide pool.


(prev. pub. in Time of Singing, 2014)

 John Rides the Range

TRACT HOUSING

The afternoon is buzzing with some
kind of noise as I race the old blue
pickup truck across the dust past white
pipes lying in the field.  I see a red and
white fox darting from under a fence
into a nearby shrub.

6-year-old Billy Kondrat tells me that
foxes are descended from dinosaurs,
and that he, too, has seen this
particularly odd creature “making like a
fox, yet being cleverly dinosaurian.”

Unloading a few groceries is tedious;
I’d rather visit Ricardo, the next-door
neighbor who has proudly unloaded
three old refrigerators onto his carport. 
I skip the fence to get a closer look at
him folding his short-sleeved shirts
neatly into a beige refrigerator.

As Ricardo croissantly folds poorly
washed socks which smell of a hint of
cheese, I think to myself, food does not
belong here.  I mouth the words in
English and mime the words with my
fingers, One must not freeze cheese,
before noticing the lack of electrical
source to each refrigerator.

Glancing across the field I see the
yellow lab chasing the red fox.  He,
too, has heard the rumor that perhaps
the fox is a dinosaur.


(prev. pub. in Poetry Now, 2008)

 Eider Duck

MY DYING PLANTS

A casual walk today in mid-July
past daisies in my garden fading fast—
as Birds of Paradise seen fading, too.
I walk a brick-lined path down stairs, past
tiny drooping pansies in their pots.
It’s summer now, I knew they wouldn’t last.

POOLSIDE PARTY’S OVER

The party’s over, and now for the cleanup.
I survey my backyard of what-it’s-not.
There beneath the grief-stricken willow
I see the stub-my-toe stone, the laughing
gnome, and the dead-as-a-dead-garden-
snake hose I forgot to coil in a threatening
manner;

the cremains of the chicken barbeque; and
Great Aunt Edie’s brilliant birthday pastry
with a million-and-eighty-one burnt-out
tiny torches; an over-flowing brown bag
full of frosty paper plates filed helter-skelter;

six flammable Japanese lanterns exploding
into shades of red and greenish-yellow
with a hint of hot blue flame; wadded
tissues whispering the phrases “Hap... “,
“Birthd... “, and “Congrat... “ in silver.

Much ado about nothing, I say, as I fall
headlong into a fully-clothed pool,
stark naked.


(prev. pub. in Peeking Cat Poetry)

_____________________

Today’s LittleNip:
 
VELOCIPEDES
—Carol Louise Moon

Very clever, these en vogue
vehicles; crank arms and pedals;
variations of a bike
visibly lacking the gears;
veering through parks at a low
velocity.  They’re on the
verge of some new invention!

_____________________

Thank you, Carol Louise Moon, for bringing these poems and pix to the Kitchen today, winding up another week for us in fine style!

Tonight at 7pm, Speak Up: The Art of Storytelling and Poetry presents a performance evening with poets and storytellers on the theme of “Lost and Found” at The Avid Reader, 1945 Broadway in Sacramento. 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, celebrating poetry!

 For more about velocipedes, go to
oldbike.eu/1869-hennings-velocipede/.

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.