Wind Dial

(As seen in the Santa Barbara Independent 11/20/08)
http://www.independent.com/news/2008/nov/14/voices-evacuated-tea-fire/
http://www.independent.com/news/2008/nov/26/three-poems-about-tea-fire/

Somewhere, in the thickness of sleep
I hear seagulls, calling back to the ocean

When I awake the sun is rising
out of ash, glowing muted
in the density of morning

Still cool from sleep, the sky
is ready to burn, blowing softly
through the window, bringing
the fragrant smell of wood

And houses
turned to dust, returned
to the ground, what remains
a chimney, brick
a steering wheel, steel
and a statue of four bodies
a circle of stone

An aloe plant still in the pot
standing at the driveway
columns leading to an empty lot
the ash on the ground
a layer lighter than snow

And an iron wind dial
still turning on the roof
of my house, spared

People start returning
home today if they can
eyes like the reservoirs, dry

Mestec Kralove

a poem from another time, another place

The heavy rain makes blossoms
fall from the train
heavy from the center
they catch all they can
then detach as graceful
as any
separation can be

White half shells, soft, pooled
like wet saucers on the cobblestones
and a rainbow umbrella passes
unawares

The old man in a modern newsboy
cap notices and nods
and the petals continue to fall
the newness of spring thick
around my ankles
dancing downwards
from my shoulders

Inside my leather bag a lake ripples
like someone getting into a bath
the color the clearest blue like
the eyes of school boys,
my school boys

And the ink begins to swim
black turned purple and watercolors
scraps of paper, almost brown
that my grandma sees as unfit
for stationary

There’s a star in this town that’s 6 pointed
it rests between the 6 and the 12, stationary

This Morning

This morning I weaved into the bathroom
my pink cotton nightgown hanging from
pert breasts, in the mirror hair disarranged

The bath was still full, left, a calm baby blue
cool, but not cold, I swirled my fingers
in the water, still soft from the since
subsided lavendar bubbles

I considered slipping in
shedding the gown and
awakening my skin

Back in bed, I slowly
touch you awakes
watch you shake small
white feathers from deep
within your curls

Sunrise over the Thames

The sky line is like an old graveyard
the buildings of different heights
all slowly sinking into soft grass

The tide's turned, after the dawn
chorus of seagulls gliding and gawking
at the light beyond the stones

Lily of the Valley

For Sara and Heath's wedding July 11th, 2008

Today I picked your bridal bouquet
in the shade of the wooden oak
away from the new summer heat
where hid the smallest bulbs of white
fragrant to the point of poison

The lilies grow out from fallen foliage,
thin green stalks leaning slightly
their delicate bells peeking out
with wide, waxy leaves

Reaching down, I tug up
a memory of you telling me,
you would only marry Bond, James Bond
we had our hair in pigtails, trying on watermelon Lip Smackers
joking about dream men, when the idea of “men” didn’t stem
much further from Ken, our fathers, and of course, Bond
there was always Bond, well- he rides a surfboard
instead of an Aston Martin, but I think you found
your modern day Connery

Bells come up quickly with a little tugging, sweet and solid, they slip
from the earth and into my tightly twined collection

And this is my happiness- that I can pretend to be
picking your flowers in the forest while your mother
ties the ribbon of the dress you wont wear, and that
with this poem, I can bless your choices
and ask forgiveness for my absence

Check Me Out In Czech

http://www.outsidermedia.cz/Article.aspx?id=187

The Sea of Things

photo credit: Scott Bourne

So she stood in a field among sturdy stalks
swimming into a sea of yellow

Pollen clinging to her dress like tears
on a dry check or moths to an cracked lamp

The stems unrelenting, milky green
and firm between her thumb and forefinger

I want to be like these flowers
Tall and rooted but bending, leaning,
with the breeze

Growing with only one desire- to thrive
to sprout, bud, and be harvested

No other desire but to live the life you’ve been planted into

With that determination comes a greater service
to be oil, food or fuel, to serve not the sun, soil, rain or dew
but something still unknown and omniscient

To lie in a field tarry with the heavy scent
of new blossoms and thirsting bees
to look through the lattice of the leaves
at endless green

Was it just yesterday that the empty fields
reflected the gray of the sky and tomorrow
they will be a blossomless green?

And she picked her bike from
grassy slumbers and rode it home
Into the sea of things

Jewish Cemetery

East Bohemia, founded 1520

So fresh grass grows up in the underbelly
of a walnut tree, the branches thin and reaching
covered in a moss that shines silver against
an evenly pale sky

All of you lay beneath me, calmer
than I’ll ever be
your stones lean right and left
but all face one direction, east

A walnut, wet and wrinkled
rests cool between my jeaned knees
the material is soft and worn
my skin supple and fat beneath it

There’s sun on my hair
it dances across my face
and my hair holds the heat
it has been dark for four months
but today the birds have come out
to call to each other
we saw them in the empty apple orchard
cooing to the stone saints
someone had forgotten
among the shriveled fruit

A man on a plane told me
you are most at home
in the place your ancestors are buried
but some, are drawn simply
to be there
for others
to remember those forgotten

The nut splits under my nails
like bark spreading from a tree
like the sound life would make
if we could slow it down and listen

With a sigh the shell pulls apart
and where I expect to see rot
a white nut, finally free
of its veiny film
glows up at me

I offer it to you, but you refuse, and leave me
feeling the soft meat melt under my teeth

Your face is as calm as the graves, white
in the sunlight

The Road From Vysočany

I.
It was the kind of sun you can stare into
there aren’t many, especially where I am from

The color too deep to cause a glare
a blood orange so soft, you could swear
it would have no taste, definitely no bite

The sun hung in the sky for a few moments
above the spruce and tuje

Then slipped away as, quietly as it emerged
to light our early Friday evening

I was riding home on my bike- handlebars rusted
the purple paint chipping from the frame

And there was a smell emerging from the cold earth
as if the seasons were changing, subtle

Like the perfume a woman dabs behind
her knees, lower back, or between her breasts

Intentional, so you only smell it when she’s standing
before you, removing a heavy sweater, suddenly
her pale skin her only adornment

And as you follow the invitation to lean
towards her face
you can smell Spring
sweet and clean resting on the cool air
between you two

II.
The road home was not even a dusty pink, something like a speck
of rouge flicked on the horizon- it’s a flat and winding road
past white plastered houses and sinking roofs with coal smoking chimneys

There are two small ponds, side, by side, the top layers so frozen
that small boulders silently skid across the surface
I know because I hurled a couple to see what would happen
clunky rocks and branches sliding across the ice, suddenly graceful

The trees bend like horses to drink
some of the low birches brush the ice in the breeze
and this is my company, I can tell you the solitude of an open field
is louder than any city street I have ever stood

Szent István Basilica

There is something in my stomach
that claws at the tender flesh,
a sadness that wants to crawl up
through my throat and drip
down my face- but it stays

I want a mind like this-
marbled, stenciled and embossed
one that shines like the gold that
decadently leads to the pinnacles of the dome

I want to hold God in my burning red lantern
but the only thing I have to pray for is a fire
and the votives are ironic- small, white and safe

I wonder what connects Budapest to San Diego
or Malibu’s flaming hill- on the train I saw
the fire in the leaves, a courageous final
cry before obliterated by the bleakness

I, am heavy like the plaited
candelabra beautiful and rooted to stone
here the smell of frankincense dances with
the dampness of rain, the air cool and marble
clean but cannot reach inside me

So I pray to be released, to be like the
stone carved Christ that appears to float
in a still room. A cross holds a candle askew
and suddenly hope strikes my stomach,
in the battle of frost and fire
perhaps the former will succeed