Taiko Drummers, Locke Festival
—Poems and Photos by D.R. Wagner, Locke, CA
THE BENDING
A sky music
From children who have never
Known morning. Birds explain
Things to us but all they speak
Of has vanished, leaving
Only shadows reflected
On gray stone, first green,
Then a dull red, repeated
Like accidents of dawn
Then dark. We feel this agony.
The house burned and here we
Are gazing after the dead.
Bring us roses and awe.
The dreams of children
Blind since birth reciting
Milton as they begin to speak.
I will sit here with you awhile.
We will watch for unusual birds.
There will be honey in their voices.
Landscapes will appear as endless spaces.
_______________
A sky music
From children who have never
Known morning. Birds explain
Things to us but all they speak
Of has vanished, leaving
Only shadows reflected
On gray stone, first green,
Then a dull red, repeated
Like accidents of dawn
Then dark. We feel this agony.
The house burned and here we
Are gazing after the dead.
Bring us roses and awe.
The dreams of children
Blind since birth reciting
Milton as they begin to speak.
I will sit here with you awhile.
We will watch for unusual birds.
There will be honey in their voices.
Landscapes will appear as endless spaces.
_______________
A DIFFERENCE
There are horse bells tonight.
Somewhere below their sounding
I can hear stringed instruments
Moving through the herd, searching
For something left here long ago.
Crystal moonlight.
The barking of a fox.
I will trust you to help
Find the paradise here, although
I am able to see it clearly
As precisely as dreams.
From my fiction I can
Build flourishes that might
Reveal the dawn, were they not
Made of words. Perhaps something to stay
With you to the end.
Something that makes a difference,
Like a crucified Jesus
Or the birth of three mice
In a wheat field.
The Remains of the Day
NIGHT WALK IN LIGHT RAIN—ATMOSPHERE
There are sparkles of rain
In your hair.
And there is, of course, the sea.
There is this strand of beach
Which manages to be mystic
No matter what the weather.
It is all for love, isn’t it?
The horse running along the edge
Of the water, the light rain,
The moonlight, the indecipherable
Bridge of the breeze found and lost
Time and time again.
All of this happens on a island
So we can have a ring of flame
On a hill in the middle distance.
A blue-washed wall of a cliff
Reaching toward a silhouette of trees.
I invoke an eternity that comes
To greet us as we leave the shore,
See the soft light in the cottage window
And head toward it, delivered
Of any particular history,
Outnumbered by the stars
Busy deciphering the clouds,
As if they were silver manuscripts.
________________
SYNAPSE
I am glad you brought nothing
With you. I can hear the birds
Tugging on the edge of the night
Wanting to pull it closer to them.
The days have become like flowers.
Opening and closing, wearing
Colored hoods, their blooms.
Then showers of seeds, hardly
Recognized as desire
But as sure as place and age.
A force as luminous as prayer
Yet still driven by muscles
Nerves and what may be
Everlasting even as it dices
Moments into secrets and
Glitters with the glass of
Instants pieced together like bits
Of a film we cannot understand
But will discuss well into the night
Over wine and lovemaking, finding them
As necessary as these fleeting icons.
Russell's Truck
THE SEASHELL
“…the harp in a crystal discord.” —K. Rexroth
The deep is bottomless here,
Yet there are campfires.
Coyote listening to a seashell?
The baby falling asleep dreaming
Of the seashell as perfection
Without knowing the perfect.
A flurry of keys rattled
Through seashells.
All things not knowing
What it is they do.
Blurred pages with images
Of these keys.
Time has a memory of the shells
But cannot give it up, or time
Will lose its way.
I bet the oceans blue that the
Seashells can speak.
I forget all history.
_____________________
ROCKS IN A RING
She was teaching the butterflies
As if the Summer would always
Be there, just as full of eternity
As three days of the dandelion
Bloom. The butterflies all sip
The pollen of the dandelion.
Surely she speaks the truth.
The river uses its eye to show
Us everything that gathers to its banks:
Hawks and house wrens, and kites,
Robins, great owls and the gulls
Who follow the river into the sloughs.
All reflected in the river’s eye.
This shore is far away now.
No matter how beautiful
This becomes, someone will say
This is not a poem. It is only
Some vanished garden
On the other side of evening.
Much like lovers with their dreaming.
Garden Scuplture
Today’s LittleNip:
THE DARK OF THE MOON
They have found the hands of the moon
And hold them tight
So it is unable to rise.
You do not remember this.
It happened beyond human memory.
This tale is told in the darkened
Night to a small group
Who gather only occasionally
Every hundred years or so.
I swear this is true.
You may call it the dark
Of the moon if you prefer.
_____________________
—Medusa, with thanks D.R. Wagner for today’s fine poems and pix!
—Medusa, with thanks D.R. Wagner for today’s fine poems and pix!
Dancers, Locke Festival
Celebrate poetry today by heading over to
the final reading of the
Senior Readers Speak
Reading Series, presenting Straight Out Scribes
(Dr. V.S. Chochezi and Staajabu) plus
GOS" Gallery owner Gerry Simpson,
as well as open mic.
1825 Del Paso Blvd., #2, Sac. Free; all ages
welcome.
Info: GOS” (916-245-0711); gosart54@gmail.com or
Staajabu
(916-601-5980); grandmomstaajabu@gmail.com;
Photos in this column can be enlarged by clicking on them once,
then click on the X in the top right corner to come back
to Medusa.