In St. Francis of Assisi, Sacramento
—Poems and Photos by D.R. Wagner, Locke, CA
FOLDING AND UNFOLDING
This morning my beliefs
Infest the day like mud gods
Painted to resemble things
I thought of when I was six
Years old and still believed stories
Of talking trees that could grant wishes.
Still, this cold January morning
I notice those same trees grouped
Once again near the edge of the oaks
At the far end of the garden.
They know my name.
When I woke up both my arms
Were tornados. Not huge tornados,
They were the same size as my regular
Arms but they behaved like tornados.
Birds were migrating through my arms.
A huge barn exploded at the end of my
Index finger and a flying board cut my cheek.
I had an entire string of traffic signal lights
Wind up into my shoulder and enter my body,
Still flashing and sparking. Rain came from
My elbows and the floor was littered with small boats.
My mother noticed what was happening.
“Don’t touch the mud gods. They could mess
Everything up. You’ll wind up with islands
On your back and they are hard to get rid of.”
Multi-colored strings began to pour from my mouth.
It was bewildering. “Stop dancing,” my mother said.
Chortling, screeching, squeaking, wheezing, wailing,
Whooping, rattling, hooting, gnashing, bleating, calling,
Squealing, whimpering, yelling, crashing, clucking.
“But I am six years old, my mother and I have
Just become a tornado for the first time.”
My mother yelled at the trees and scattered
The mud gods all over the kitchen floor.
“Now eat your cereal and get ready for school.”
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THE LEFTOVER DOOR
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THE LEFTOVER DOOR
Just because there is a door
Does not mean one must use it.
Gray or mouse white. We are all one.
A weariness has come for me.
It saw me sitting at my desk
Trying to be sly, to remember
Any number of waterfalls,
Even waterfalls from story books.
All I could visualize were abandoned
Factories, boarded-up school buildings,
Pools with beautiful oil slicks being
Pummeled by rain just as the sun
Was rising.
I began looking for lines of trees
In the middle of alfalfa fields.
That created a longing in me that
Had no center but for the season.
It made me want to bake bread.
I couldn’t believe I was still alive.
I began to think songs were parasites.
Dreams have their own cars. They
Were available from rental agencies
If you were an exile or a promoter.
I climbed the tower just to get to the top.
By the time I got there, it was already night.
What had I promised my body? That I would
Always love you or that I would remember
Everything I could lose? I don’t think
I missed a single step. Except for a few
Moths, only an empty mind.
Quince Tree, Winter, Locke
THE FLOOR
The bamboo begins to tell of the coming rain.
The song of the rain still hangs above the valley.
It has been near to the moon all day now, and there
Has been no sun, whispers on the wavelets in the river.
Now, at five o’clock in the evening, the day has decided
To gather a large collection of grays and brings them
Close over the fallow winter gardens.
Near the end of January, color seems almost too much
Trouble for the evening. There are only two yellow quinces
Left on the tree near the long table. Orange, barely worth
The effort for a sunset. This poem might as well be silence
For such a day. I will listen for the late rain while I await
Sleep. Tonight, I will know the voices of her daughters, rain,
While they embrace the roof and the gravel road past my house.
__________________
I DRESS MYSELF IN CLOUDS
Between this world and the next one
I ask you to accept these words.
Blood runs from my mouth and I hold
An apple in my hand as an offering.
It too is red and sweeter than my mouth.
I too am a figment. I dress myself in clouds.
I have no voice but the earth herself.
She teaches me to speak in this manner.
Carry me with you as you would your shadow.
I will come and go with the changing of the light.
I have come to understand fire and desire.
People on this earth tell me many things.
What should I believe about you then?
Often I am a fog or a frost upon leaves.
I will drift into your thoughts on occasion.
You may think you have heard my voice.
I will implore you to dress yourself in love
That I may know you and intuit your footsteps
In all the centuries. I will never pretend to you.
In St. Francis of Assisi, Sacramento
THREE MEN CARRYING STONES
I met three men carrying stones.
“We have come to stop the tides.
Each day it disappears and then
Comes back, or sends its sons,
Small and great or its daughters,
Who make love to the moon and make
It too disappear. We will wait for no one.”
I showed them the drowned cities,
Let them speak to the lost souls
Owned by nothing, not even time.
“Time is blind,” they said.
Their voices were like bells
Sparkling below the stars.
“It has no substance. It can
Only pursue. It shows us only
Massive particles and tries
To explain creation as if it owned it."
I will tell you nothing more
My sweet friends of the horizon,
Until you sleep beside me
That we may know the awe
Of each other’s breathing.
There will be other ways to say
These things. Perhaps birds
Know something we may never
Know and yet they speak of it
Constantly, acrobats of fireworks.
I have been standing in the cave
At the edge of the sea for days
Now. The stones are tossed
Into the ocean. They are of
Many sizes. Every question
I have asked these men has
Been answered by the most glorious
Gestures of their hands and their smiles.
In St. Francis of Assisi, Sacramento
THE MAKING
All I have known has been the making.
And while I was not making, I was loving
You forever and ever and none of that
Has changed. Does one thing preclude
The other?
I used to think not, but now
I can feel your skin and your muscles
Through your body and the smell of your hair.
The way you touched my body when you loved me.
But none of that has changed, has it?
Except that you are no longer there
When I reach into the words.
They have other jobs now.
I never would have thought they would
Weary of the travel and the cool nights
That held them together and brought
Joy to the morning and peace to the evening.
There are so many steps. There are so many
Makings. All of them remember much more than
I am able to drive to the dance, the heart open
And then open and then open again and again.
Always full of the making and your warmth
Next to my body and all the half-hidden laughter
Delighted moment by moment to be such a being.
Succulent Garden, Winter, Locke
RAIN AND THE MOUTH OF LOVE
The body spins through space.
The rain has gathered above
The house. I can hear it whispering.
Tonight my little town will be its chair.
I will listen to the glory it brings from the throne
To this wandering room my body has become.
I stutter. I try to make my words of the most
Precious of things, tree sap to amber, clear
Water to opals, pushing stars into rubies
That one can gather to themselves while they sleep.
All that is radiant awakens within me again every
Moment. I will wait here for you, on my knees,
Just to see you take my heart from moment
To moment. I will sing in the choir, all the secrets,
All thoughts brought down to your breathing
Through me and with me and in me. The light
Will direct me away from all of nightmare and darkness.
Let these words be once again in the mouth of love.
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Today’s LittleNip:
Most people read poetry listening for echoes because the echoes are familiar to them. They wade through it the way a boy wades through water, feeling with his toes for the bottom: The echoes are the bottom.
—Wallace Stevens
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—Medusa, with thanks to D.R. Wagner for today's fine fare!
Banananimal