—Poems and Photos by D.R. Wagner, Locke, CA
SUCH WAS MY HOME
The song breaks open,
Spills on the floor,
Looking for something
That will become the bells
Of the morning, your smile,
Or water making magic
As it falls from a great height.
I still long to see you
On the mountain path,
The fire opening up the night
To where your eyes glow
Once again against the lines
Strings make when they are played.
The footsteps move so quickly
Away. These are not the winds.
They are notes of crystal and
Moments flabbergasted to even
Be here, caught in the voice,
More than music, more than song.
QUANTITY, AS IN WALKING
“It is,” I said
And the blue pines
Aimed straight to heaven,
Wordless and powerful
As thrones.
I could walk in the shadows
And feel the ranging threads
On the backs of the tapestries.
These seem to be things but
Are not things at all,
Just as paint is not painting
Or clouds the story
Of the sky.
I crouch close to the fire
Somewhere in this night
And find myself looking
Across all of history
With its missing pieces.
Even the planets spinning
Stupidly as I toss more
Wood on the fire
To more clearly hear
The cough of the loon
Through night’s doors,
Each door with its Autumn,
Winter, and nervous Spring
Humming away, working in
These darks to convince me
Of prayer, when every step
Makes an error and tacks
Itself to my life.
“It’s your mirror,” it says,
Splashing water before me.
“Make of it what you will.”
I leave to fish, thinking
Things such as fish
Could feed me better
Or at least suffice until
The rising of the moon.
GIFTS OF THE WIND
She filled the evening
With a quiet song that
Made me put my head
Against the earth and close
My eyes as if I were very much
In love and very much alone
At the same time.
Soon other voices joined hers
And the sky grew darker.
I could hear kalimbas being
Played far away. They sounded
Like birds might sound when they
Realize they are dancing.
_________________
FIREFLIES
I meant to say something
Completely different
But I kept thinking of your eyes
And what your neck must
Feel like if I found the right
Place to place my lips upon
It, so you could recognize
What I was doing was kissing you.
I could have thought of the puritanical sky
But you would not have
Recognized any sky.
I had to imagine our tongues
Intertwining and fields and streams
Coming to tell you that
I was loving you.
That all these words
Were not fireflies.
WITHIN THE SAGA
A thick quietness of heart
Like a mouth burned
By curses and chased
From a country where no music
Came and only thick
Smoke rose to cloud the sun
And bring dark mischief
That still cannot be named.
Such horror fell
That comes from clouds
Standing still over
A country composed of islands,
Struggling to keep its blood
Within a body split
By seas loud as
Herds of stampeding horses.
Its shores thirsting to wash themselves
Of such blood and old curses
That make even the trees weep.
There shall be no sound
Like this again on earth,
For it is a sound born
Of hero kings and dragons,
Of such loves that
Even doom cannot close
Words down upon them
And where the breath of birds
Be made as hurricanes
As we fall beneath
The screaming of the hawks.
_____________________
MERCY
She, at the end of mercy
Had heard a song
And it came to have
A meaning.
A vacant loss surrounded
By a silence that could
Not move closer to my lips.
It would not have words.
Rather, it would be a membrane
That keeps the guts
In their place while
We walk the planet,
Then touches us, insisting
That we must answer some
Kind of call.
Tonight, the rain continues
Softly, opening the earth.
Thus disappears the words
Syllable by syllable,
Vowel by vowel,
Consonant by consonant,
Until, standing near
Midnight at my open door,
I can hear the coyotes
Explaining such mercy
To their hungry cubs.
CROW VISION
And the crows flew.
There were ten or twelve,
But one came back toward me
And I became afraid.
But it circled me slowly
And made me still.
Then, landing on my shoulder
While I quivered in fear,
Spoke in a crow voice
Saying:
We saw your face below the ice,
Looking at us as we gathered
For the night. And then you
Walked across the frozen
Field and we saw you
As starlight, but closer,
And knew you could hear
Us talking of masks
And flaming ropes
And the precise qualities
Of the wind this drear
Evening, and wondered why
You chose to come to us now?
Are you a portent?
What have you seen?
I have known you all my life,
I said, and have found
It unbearable that you crows
Still feel I am less a bird,
Perhaps a madness, to you.
For I am trees and weather
And feathers and spine.
But now I am not
Alarmed, no, not at all.
I do gaze up at you
From below the ice
And now unfold as leaves
To you and your clan.
And in the morning
I will be gone again.
Lying in my bed, waking,
Gazing across the winter gardens,
Listening to you talk. But I
Shall no longer know the
Language of the crows.
Yes, this is so, he said, and lifted
His wings and became
The night once more.
_____________________
Today’s LittleNip:
MOMENT
“It’s just a moment,
Isn’t it?” she said,
As the child she held
So close to her breast
Stopped breathing.
The night looked exactly
The same.
______________________
Our thanks to D.R. Wagner for a sumptuous breakfast at today's beginning of Kwanzaa, which runs through Jan. 1. See www.officialkwanzaawebsite.org/index.shtml for more about this yearly celebration of family, community and culture. And be sure to head over to GOS” Art Gallery today at 2pm (1825 Del Paso Blvd. in Sac.) for Straight Out Scribes’ Senior Readers Speak, featuring Dr. David Covin.
—Medusa
