Coyotebush
—Poems and Photos by Taylor Graham, Placerville, CA
THE TRUTH OF THE PLACE
She dumped her weekly waste in the one empty
garbage can. The other guy in the rental duplex—
fireman, hero of public opinion—had filled
the other cans with his own trash before rushing
off with sirens. That left just her genie, the truth-
in-stolen-song Mockingbird, who rose, now, out
of pyracantha by the back fence. He sang
of a fence’s far side, a bit of wasteland beyond—
scraps of what used to be the land—dry arroyo;
no mesquite, nothing but coyote-bush and scrub
oak, teeming with lizards and snakes, rock that
glittered when held up against sun. Secretive
spotted towhee. The place to lose a rental world.
Wind swept away her footprints.
Apple Leaves Fall
VISITATIONS UNDER THE HILL
Three children grew up far inland
under a mountain called the pilot-hill,
where lightning was fairy-lanterns to a child.
They listened to bell-songs of birds
in spring, the lull in summer; and in fall,
wind stripping the gold oaks bare.
The songs they heard came from far away
where land melts in ocean and ocean-waves
dream of becoming mountains-high.
One boy imagined a universe of numbers.
The other boy raised a speckled lamb.
The girl was carried off by a winged horse—
her own small, gentle bay gelding.
At last she rode back from imaginary lands,
dismounted, and soon was married.
The lamb was abducted
not by the wolf of bedtime stories,
but cougar uncloaked in naked dawn.
The universe of numbers took the boy
who loved them and planted him
on a sand-spit of numbers far away.
September 29 Dawn
LE PIANO DES MORTS
for A.
Will you play music sleep-serene?
soft as a nurse’s step as she makes her way
among miseries?
I think he’d want the modern mode,
driving pulse to match his own—leaving home
we’d call paradise but for the draw
of the Unknown beyond.
Electric. St. Elmo’s fire atop the mast
as he set sail to see the world, hear every note,
strange voices mixed in chorus
caught between joyful and sad, his smile.
Lightning down the spinal cord
as he worked the ropes,
and sailed through the doors of night.
To put him so unexpectedly to rest—so early—
lighten the tone to transform a life
cut cleanly—one stroke of ivory to slice
the chord.
Looking Up
DEEP IN THE HIGH
That mountain valley—
water cascaded down granite, landscape
revealed as a living body
graphed in its complexities of contour
and aspect. Here’s a map you can
shade to three dimensions;
and the fourth dimension, eons of time.
Imagination roughs it out: steady
erosion; eruption, uplift.
You can climb that world of switch-
backs, carrying your life
in a Kelty pack; climb the promontory
point as if it were headlands,
cliff jutting into the rush-tide of upslope
winds. Along the way, meadows
saturated with snowmelt, blooming
like Easter in July; a view
over forest deep enough to lose
and maybe find yourself.
Late September Oak
LIVES PASSED
After all the times I looked away
as my dog led me through the homeless woods
and a woman, stooped at a camp-stove,
looked up and waved at me
and smiled—
after all the times I looked away
and felt lucky but guilty because I had a home,
and sad but powerless when the powers-
that-be said they couldn’t camp there
and drove them away—
In another life, I come in thrift-store hand-
me-downs, still escorted by my dog
who greets each person she’s known
in passing, tail wagging, and
she licks each hand
as if she knows them all by name
and scent, the people who lived in natural places
without title or key but simply
lived, and waved at strangers and their
dogs, and smiled.
Green Off the Highway
A GREEN HOME
Bundled against October, a woman
was walking her dog along the frontage road.
Her dog discovered him: hands
wrapped around a cup of coffee steaming
into cold air; hunched over a small fire;
all surplus green, his clothes, his camp—
tarp-tent, mossy log for a bench—
off the freeway, deep in cedar woods, his
green steeples. She promised
not to tell, so he told her. He was no
boots-on-the-ground in that war—
no exposure to the orange forest-eating
dragon—they said. He slip-streamed
into memory that entwines like poison oak
up a tree. He came out of it.
Said he doesn’t trust anybody.
Not the uniform who told him to go
somewhere else to sleep. He trusts these
woods to hide him. He’d fight to protect these
deep green woods, his home. She promised.
He knows the dog won’t tell.
Just Turning
Today’s LittleNip:
ONE MOMENT THEN THE NEXT
A man slid into the driver’s seat—
headed west, what errands? out of town.
Curves of country road swallowed
him in brights and shadow,
dizzy twisting centerline as he dodged
structures of culvert and cutbank.
This is how mistake
heaps on error, steady as a rocker
that keeps on rocking
after you’ve tired of it, stood up,
and walked away—your
mind already busy with something else.
_____________________
Many thanks to Taylor Graham for today’s fine, fine poems and pix!
Poetry in Sacramento tonight includes Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Cafe, 8pm, or The Big Showstopper Spoken Word Competition at Laughs Unlimited in Old Sac, also at 8pm. In Davis, it’s Spoken Word Maestro Fong Tran at John Natsoulas Gallery, also at 8pm. 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.
RD Armstrong of Lummox Press writes: "I’m alerting you to this anthology, Lummox, that I have been doing for the past 6 years. It's always chock full of poetry (156 poets in this issue) and art (10 artists), along with essays, interviews and reviews...it's everything that an inquiring mind might need vis-à-vis poetry. And the best part is, if you live in the USA, it's only $25 (including shipping)! Visit the webpage to find out more and order a copy; go to: www.lummoxpress.com/lc/lummox-6/."
And don’t forget that the Sacramento Voices anthology from Cold River Press is available at www.coldriverpress.org/. To see photos of all those contributors who read at the launch party last Saturday, go to www.facebook.com/Medusas-KitchenRattlesnake-Press-212180022137248/.
—Medusa
Celebrate poetry!
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