Cottonwood
—Photo by Taylor Graham
FAITH, A DREAM
—Taylor Graham, Placerville
They were sowing the edges
of forest
with spent cartridges.
Pop-pop—earth littered
with plastic red drops. On
a logging road
I found lined-up dummies
shot execution-
style, heads bound with
scrap cloth, wooden
baby-dolls lying in
skid-trail dust. Victims
of a drive-by—no, that
was on the TV news.
This is dream, a walk in
the woods.
One old cedar leaned about
to fall, its guts
shot out. 3000 rounds, or
a million,
fired not at random; into
bark and sinews.
A scarred old cottonwood
still
puts out hopeful shoots,
lovely
green. Is this a dream?
The cedar lowered
to its knees where it
kneels to pray.
_______________
QUIXOTE IN COWBOY WARP
—Taylor Graham
His horse gone decades ago
to the boneyard—how did
the old avenger-
of-wrongs end up here, at
the Cowboy
Poetry Roundup? He asks
someone
to clip his chaps up the
back—
a knight shouldn't have to
buckle his own
armor. Rough-out leather,
from a pawnshop in—surely not Barcelona.
Maybe Fresno. Dates and
places
escape him now. But he
remembers verses
long gone to myth.
Enchanted
caves; windmills. A
grizzly bear
gold-purple in sunset
mountain light.
The shoot-out for Dulcinea's
smile. In boots not made
for walking,
he totters up on stage.
No spotlight, no light at
all but his
words. Rocinante rhymes
with nothing but the wail
of a gut-
strung guitar.
_______________
EVIDENCE OF PASSING
—Taylor Graham
Water dries up so quietly,
we don't notice,
until the mud bakes with a
silk-sheen
crust that cracks, pulls
apart in jigsaw-puzzle
pieces. If I looked
closer, I might see tiny
imprints on the surface as
if fossils—tadpole
squiggles, mosquito
wigglers. Life that
was, before the drought.
My dog could read
these histories with her
nose, but she has
no human words to tell me.
She can smell
running water from a
quarter mile away.
There isn't any. She seeks
shade, leaving sand-
paper paw-prints on the
smooth mud crust,
fractured as it dried. Whose
fault? Fragments
of tracks in dust, a
jigsaw picture. How
shall we put the pieces
back together right?
_______________
CALLING THE CAT
—Taylor Graham
—Taylor Graham
At night in the dark—you
with half-blind eyes
at time's edge, vision's
midnight in disguise—
you saw old Possum
shadow-black emerge
from closet, silent at the
hallway verge.
And she was gone. The rest
is just surmise
and worry. Black Possum—who curled slantwise
while dwindling from a
purr—we'll eulogize.
But hear the rooster's
raucous cock-crow surge
at night in the dark.
Whatever can that mean? A
kind of dirge,
a fanfare for tomorrow—how we purge
the nightmares,
disappearances, half-lies
before, at daybreak, you
and I will rise
to call the cat. Beyond
our doors, doubts merge
with night in the dark.
_______________
AN OLD STORY
—Taylor Graham
Somebody used to live in
this cabin
before air-conditioning
and chlorinated water.
Someone must have hauled
water up the dry hill—
water that seeped from
springs
where a child might hunt
for salamanders—
water that lazed awhile in
a high lake,
focusing August sun in
brilliant ripples.
But this cabin—no one
lives
here now, where summer
punishes the roof,
the door hanging by a
hinge;
where coyotes—sable
half-shadow—
pass through the two
twilights.
_______________
WITHOUT A/C
—Taylor Graham
In July, under a
ceiling-fan, the dogs
sprawled on the hardwood
floor.
In July I'd sit on the
deck watching bats swoop
from the eaves at dusk.
In July, old cat Possum
cuddled against me
to share body-warmth.
In July, old dog Taco
slept in the bathroom tub.
In July, jays and towhees
went about
their summer business.
In July, at night I'd
sweat inside the screens.
Air-conditioning?
In July, cold air feels so
unnatural.
_______________
Today's LittleNip(s):
Desert mesa
Desert mesa
shifting
in tones of joyful mirage
~~~
Thermal day winds
dry now
the seasonal lagoon
~~~
Shy livestock stares
blink blanks
a hammer swinging
downwards
—Michael Cluff, Corona
_______________
—Medusa
Possum, where have you gone?
—Photo by Taylor Graham
