Oratory

Oranges

When one wakes in the night
despite sleeping pills, white
noise machines, orthopedic
pillows, and thinks of oranges

-- such sweetness -- there it is,
that orange, floating brilliantly
in this dim room -- and all
the things one must make sense

of -- Nehru jackets, bouffant
hairdos, threatening french
nails -- your attachment to top-
less bars, those artificial orbs,

that tooty fruity booze -- all
this demanding explication
in the swoony night with its
train whistles and sock-it-to-me

buzz, love, American style, the ed-
ification of this planet's turn to
darkness, the rebellious suicide
of the sun, the sweetness of

oranges -- where is Lawrence
of Arabia when you need him
to peel this open, to hand you,
one-by-one, these white-veined

crescents, dripping with light?

   

Listening

The caravan winding narrow
canyons, animals stumbling
with the weight of this dream
cargo and you always, sky eyes
sea eyes, cold creek eyes, in this
dream who are you? I am saying

Yes. I am saying No. I am painting
this room the color of your eyes.
The furnace needs repair. A snake
is loose in the house. Outside
I am dancing with Artemis. I know
my warnings will be unheeded, we

are overloaded and I have so much
more than others. What can be left
behind? There are rules about what
a woman can wear and I break them,
defiantly. But also, this is all I have.
We have come so far. I am taken out

of the human world. Young and lean,
sky in your eyes, when you walk into
this dream, who are you?  Lust, longing,
lost forever, you swear to me, forever,
this kiss the universe, the whole of all
the love there is. This cold crescent

moon is gleaming like an upturned
palm in the western sky, everything
wrapped in a kind of glow. Does blood
know vessels; do muscles know bones?
Listen. There is a hum in the deep
woods, in the high desert.

   

Christo

      

First one must find a concept
large enough to contain the entire
city: Saffron, perhaps, or Gate.
The horse pulls its head into
its neck, making its body an
S below the gibbous moon.
Cover the river in grey silk. Let
the building reinvent itself
in soft satin curves. Owls
resent this impersonation
of their essence, feathers
cloaking coldness and no
blood. Let mice run beneath
the strutted floors, the gilded
ceilings arched like stars over
nothing. Nothing in this sky
is identified, so let it be
that.

   

Fever

Do birds carry feathers or do feathers
carry birds? Waves of moments

make hourly seas. Floating on winter
feathers make fans make breeze.

The bird hits the glass and the bird
shatters. It repeats. Three crows ride

on a warthog's back. It is so hot,
drifting. This thin, fogged window

marks the place between dreams.
The badger, with its striped face

wheezes down a long gravel road.

   

Spring Equinox 02005

Each morning I remind myself what day
this is, to place myself within the human
community. These calendars, these dates
are not real things, but merely human

impositions on the sun, the moon,
the stars, which all will follow their own paths
whether we name them or not. These weeks past
our blue earth's path is changed by its own

deep spasm. We walk along its surface
pretending not to notice it can toss
us off at a whim. It reclaims us
millimeter by millimeter, loose

flesh and slow bones, smoky dusks and brilliant
noons -- all sacrificial celebrants.

The Making of Eve

Horses were involved, no
question. And leopards,

yes. Foxgloves dropped
their blossoms and roses

opened their hearts in blue
air. Geysers pushed up

from stone while Strawberry
Moon rounded, and blushed.

How the dogs bayed! Each
lily curved its creamy petals.

The forest sharpened its teeth
with fire. Oh, the hiss of serpents,

the sad moan of the sea. She
bloomed from the seed of

the planet, a slow and patient
tendril, sapling of her own desire.

 

Clark Fork River

This road is bordered
by willows and quaking
aspen shaking light
on shallow water.

Stones rest like red
coins in the riverbed.
I cross this river again
and again, bridge after

bridge. It cuts and winds
through cottonwood
groves and pine forests.
Or is it this road that bends

and turns, twisting its way
along a straight-backed
river. This paved road.
Its narrow painted line.

   

hieroglyphs

walls dissolve like smoke
a pelican drags its broken wing

hieroglyphs surface in sand
blindly, blankly, she steps into the blue

the husband speaks in tongues
the child closes and opens its azure hand

it is just like walking a plank
the dock is a long grey arm

she is stepping carefully, lifting
each foot, curling her toes in the air

the water is singing
the water is singing

   

lots

this is my lot
we each have our own lot

a lot is a sheaf of wheat
from our father’s field

a lot is a grain of wheat
from our mother’s hand

a lot is a stem of wheat
shaped like a key

a key to a room
a skeleton key

we each have our own room
sometimes a corner of my room

is a corner of your room
sometimes it isn’t

some rooms are small & dank
some are bright wheat fields

with broad horizons and locusts
sleeping in the soil

the wife of lot
looked back & now

seasons all our
solitary suppers

Feather & Snow

the people are blank papyrus
upon which god writes her poems
the people are poems of grace
the poems are a blaze in the snow

the snow grows higher & higher
all the windows are covered
there are winding paths to the doors
but they are hidden under the snow

the people are walking poems
their limbs are covered in language
these bodies are eloquent prayers
burning paths through the snow

this woman, this man, they are poetry
this child is god's own song
these poems are grace made flesh
written in verse in the snow

   

the people are blank papyrus
upon which god writes her poems
the people are poems of grace
the poems are a blaze in the snow

the snow grows higher & higher
all the windows are covered
there are winding paths to the doors
but they are hidden under the snow

the people are walking poems
their limbs are covered in language
these bodies are eloquent prayers
burning paths through the snow

this woman, this man, they are poetry
this child is god's own song
these poems are grace made flesh
written in verse in the snow