Better be.
Life happens to us proleptically,
Falling out of the future toward us,
Like ribbons of sunrays or (God knows)
Asteroids. Because:
Tsunamis.
Earthquakes.
Flood, fire, and pestilence.
We take refuge in cities.
Mine is a mile high and sheltered,
A bulwark of mountains to the west
And vast prairies east
Holding the ocean at bay
With its sharks and hurricanes and
Undertow currents.
Because we have known Nature as a bitch
Not a Mother—
Tooth and claw, flesh for scavenging,
Bone and blood ready to be mashed into pies and eaten
By fate and
Unexpected calamities.
North of my city is a caldera that could
Swallow us whole,
Explode my entire world with a
Shrug of its shoulders
And a pyroclastic wave
We’d see coming.
So all the lines of punditry seem so silly,
The drawn lines of us’s and them’s—
A fool’s effort.
We should huddle close, harness each other,
In case we only have time for one last
Spasm of love before we die.
Reading scripture with the news is harrowing.
The words work us over like dough,
Punch and roll, punch and roll.
God takes a breath and lets us rise,
Then punches down again.
At some point God the Baker will
Put us in an oven till our crust cracks.
But we will be made consumable to the world
For its nourishment.
Frost on Fields
Frost on fields, the day begins before dawn.
Stars fade, replaced overhead by starlings;
The little birds wing from their hidden nesting places
To speed to the oncoming arc of the sun’s rays.
I stand beside a knot-hearted old tree,
Its arteries sending skyward soil salts and water
To join transmuted light in leaves
Budded, greened, past green, now falling,
To land upon the ground like scattered gold medallions.
Morning’s cold hangs heavy in the air
Making every inhale a sip.
In the river, rock-filled water rolls wild and on.
Moss-covered granite stones, boulder behemoths,
Stand sentinel along the trail in stillness,
As they will be—still standing—
The day after our hotly anticipated days,
Come what may.
We are the dust. Not the ground.
Our selves and our societies are so many scattered granules.
The earth is serene, steady and lasting,
While our troubles heave then retreat,
Flare then fade faster than days.
The land we inhabit holds,
And nature nods farewell at our departures.
There is a refuge in Nature’s abiding,
And a release in our passing.
May what comes bring the solutions we seek,
But may our wisdom outlast such things.
May our salvation stand like stones
And fly like starlings.
Gisle Skeie
Paraphrasis
i. Rewording
And when we spoke about love,
we did not speak about love.
Instead we spoke about hands.
Some of them would be warm.
Some of them would be violent.
We did not speak about violence.
Instead we spoke about clouds.
It did not rain at all that day.
It did not rain much that year.
It was the most arid decade ever.
We gave in to internal liquids.
We did not speak about love.
Instead we spoke about history.
A hundred years since the flood.
See that building? we would say.
Everyone who lived there drowned.
ii. Relocating
We met a pilgrim in Santiago de Compostela,
and we were not surprised.
Later, in St. Petersburg, we found ourselves
eating tasteless tex mex.
But the rare steaks near to the Winter Palace,
they made us want each other.
Home again. Someone had stirred up a political
debate while we were away.
We made new plans to cross the Arctic Circle
to watch the midnight sun.
There are two more questions that need to be
answered, but spring is here.
I’m too fascinated by the migrant birds, at least
the ones who don’t return.
iii. Intermezzo
We shared the bread without
asking where it came from.
Strong winds all day.
Some believed in ghosts.
In the innermost rooms
there were no guests left.
We shared the wine without
knowing its country of origin.
Forecasts of heavy clouds,
but the rain never came.
Some woke up and felt compelled
to change their names or faces.
Some fell asleep while aching to
have their bodies replaced with air.
A tiger took shelter in the moss,
scaring up a flock of seagulls.
Then there was a series of events
that may or may not be of significance.
There is a lot more to add to this.
We are figuring out how to say it.
iv. Transference
In October I realized that
we were late for November.
When December came,
everything else was late, too.
I think I was planning to tell you
that I had been missing you, but
instead I told you how much
I wanted to sleep with you.
Christmas. Did we watch that movie?
I quit smoking, but it was a mistake.
New year. It was meant to be
someone else who quit smoking,
but they quit
something else instead.
I saw them.
They were trying so hard.
We, too, should try harder.
January. Snow, whiteness.
We can see the North Pole from here,
time is such a frozen little thing.
We could crush it, I guess.
If that would change anything.
v. Rearranging
Recall the vastness of indomitable youth and
the spirited hubris of juvenile lovemaking:
Next there were funeral drums in town, and
her sweater lost its scent of rain and wood.
We never went back in there, not after she
gave birth to a tiny creature in Suburbia East.
Next there was a silvery train arriving from
the last of the sieged cities. It was rumored
that the war prisoners had been left behind
to die. They all wore one-colored sweaters.
What color? We whispered in busy city streets,
we did not know what else to ask: What color?
Next we were summoned for questioning,
lining up in front of the home department,
where my one last question was dismissed:
‘Your honor, may I rephrase my entire life?’
Next there was an acid rain, and it flooded
the country, disfiguring everything except
for a few things, including a little boy on the
beach, lying face down in the ignorant sand.
It did not look a lot like love. Maybe it was
after all, but we did not speak about love.
Bruce Taylor
Men Fishing with Wives
Who runs the motor who steers the boat
knows what’s biting on what and where
who handles the anchor who ships the oars
who’s too quiet or never quiet enough?
Who wears the silly hat who forgot the beer
or the bait or sunscreen or bug spray
who remembers what the other forgets
who is always right at least half the time?
Who wants to catch the big one, who doesn’t
care if they ever catch anything at all?
Over the years they’ve learned things
upon which they’ve learned to agree.
Never let the fish get in the way of fishing.
Never let the holes in your net get bigger
than the fish you hope to catch.
Be patient. Keep your bait in the water.
Handsome Man in a Fancy Boat
His outfits, all Eddie Bauer,
top of the line, his gear I’d guess
the latest and best, his beard coiffed
and silvered, his eyes, barbed and grey.
Mostly it’s old farts in bucket hats,
your usual worm and bobber crowd,
or the occasional husband and wife,
one ships the oars, one sets the anchor
or a kid in a canoe, toking a joint
or three shirtless buddies cursing
in a pontoon too big for this lake,
or a couple in kayaks with cameras.
He’s here almost everyday day to fish
these shallows, weed-choked, pocked
by algae, all dragonflies and stunted
sunnies he tosses back barely hooked
and the undersized bass he stoops
to release without even checking.
But mostly he catches nothing.
Mostly we all almost always do.
Learn Ice Fishing at Home
Lately I’ve been trying since
it goes on right outside my window
sometimes so close to our bedroom
the sound of the auger wakes us,
you can tell how deep the ice is
by how long they have to drill.
They set their tip-ups and sit
on buckets and smoke and stare
down into the unseeable dark.
Nothing left to do now but wait.
I breakfast in my sunny kitchen,
the coffee bold, the toast golden.
There are lessons to be learned.
So far I haven’t learned them all.
I know why they sit alone but
where in the ice to drill the hole,
how deep into the dark you have to go,
how long is how long it is to wait?
Always Expect a Train
says the new sign at the tracks near my house
I’ve crossed three or four times a day for years
on my way to wherever to get whatever
I need or want or think I have to have
but I’ve never seen one coming or going
nor even, as I’ve imagined, been stuck there
watching car after car rumble by full of whatever
going wherever or rumbling empty back.
I’ve not even seen a speck of one at a distance,
future engine speeding my way or red caboose
at last trailing away, vanishing into the past.
But some nights when the stutter in my heart
wakes me before dawn, or one of my old regrets
sits on the edge of the bed smoking and sighs,
the moan of a not so distant whistle haunts me
and rumbles in the dark I always am expecting.
Tracking in Snow
Most mornings we know
the tracks outside our door,
bunny and Bambi, Rocky
the raccoon we recognize
even without his mask.
Sometimes we can’t and don’t.
Something feline the books say
though we’ve never seen a cat.
Something canine but dogs don’t
run loose this time of year.
Once from our shore somebody
stepped off, walked straight
across the frozen lake
alone, in the dark, in the cold,
at least as far as we can see.
Fresh snow covers everything,
scratch of squirrel or crow,
even our own familiar trails
which took us somewhere and
brought us, this time, back.
Ricky Ray
Proximity
The rabbit parts, taken out of the context of the rabbit,
will sit on the counter in their juices, hinting at stew,
and they will look good and hale and nutritious to him,
and they will look like awful, bloody murder to her.
And the differences will hang between them,
not as something to be fought over,
but as something there and real and true.
Something that binds if it does not break apart,
for they will not resolve their differences;
the resolution will come in the way
their differences lie up against one another in the night.
They Used to Be Things
In the book were pages
and on the pages was ink
and in the ink were words
that were once ideas
we made of things, like
wool is made of a goat
and a sweater is made
of wool, warmth
is made of wool’s
trappings and favorite
is made of our time
in the warmth.
The story goes
that the ideas
went away and formed
their own tribe. Then,
they forgot to come back
and visit; they forgot
the way home. Over time,
they even forgot
where they came from,
and the more distant
the words grew
from their origin,
the more the words
tried to become things
themselves. But words
are not even the pale
shimmerings on
the butterfly’s wings,
let alone the thin
translucence
flapping itself up.
When the wolfwind howls
and the ground
whispers crystals of ice,
if I wrap my feet
in ideas—lots and lots
of them—they still freeze.
Even newspaper tucked
into old brown boots
leaves them stiff
and shivering
through the night.
But then I chant
my confessions
to the moon,
and the rendezvous
of word and blood
lights ten little
fires in my toes.
Songs Early and Late
I
On earth there was
a voice that sang:
we are on the earth
and we are
the earth
itself
standing up,
in the world
and of it,
of
what
the world’s of,
too.
II
Oh, earth, as we in our flailing
snag each strand of species
and pull until it comes
out of your he
ad by the root—
as we stopper and scar the follicles—
as we make of your forest
a farm fit for the mills
but not for the panthers,
is it true that you become
less beautiful?
Life After Electricity?
On the beach, another species,
half human or something like it,
periodically watches the sun go down.
They don’t gather every night.
When they do, after sunset, they empty
what they have seen into the sand.
It accepts everything that bothers them.
Leaves them turning to one another
as if wrongs were pains of growth.
They have learned to wash in saltwater
and see clearly. They have learned
to walk home by the moon.
One of their young has a flashlight
buried where he sleeps. He dreams
of power. He is afraid to use it.
Late Night Possibilities
I
You could close your eyes,
your neck dripping with sweat
in the late September heat.
II
You could begin to dream
of going somewhere,
quickly,
of horns and flashing lights
trying to guide you
safely toward your destination.
III
You could waver between
the dream state and waking state
where sparks shower your face
from the side of the car
shearing the guard rail,
the guard rail shearing the car.
IV
Your foot could become
heavy with sleep
and your hands could fall
away from the wheel
and your body could plow
into the night
with no concern