Cabin, Slocanada, 31 May 2017

The waterfall at Wee Sandy on the other side
Of the lake was the loudest sound at night,
A sound as steady as an electric motor
Whirring rather quietly. Occasionally
A chip truck would pass by on the highway
High above this side of the lake, a whoosh.
The twin creeks feeding the bay, right
And left of the cabin, purled in whispers.
The birds had gone quiet. No actual engines
Could be heard--not on the water, not
In the air. The deck smelled of fresh-sawed
Cedar. One amber light could be seen
Well down the shore to the south. The moon
Was crescent and waxing. Daughter
Was inside, on a pallet, sleeping. The night
Was almost over before it was begun.
A composition is a juxtaposition of shifting
Planes, a slowing, a selection to slow things
Down. But the holdfast days go only faster.

Molly Hughes Bay, Slocanada, 30 May 2017

Lying on the old plank dock naked
In the middle of a weekday or gliding
Through the cold green water of the bay,
Body surprised to be so unencumbered,
Self savored the momentary sense
Of triumph, as if decisions had had anything
To do with this near miracle. To be alive
And without pain, and feeling the world
As an intimate, individual pleasure,
The mountains' indifference a virtue,
Showing no awareness of the perils
Facing the little fish in the lake below them:
This was not an abeyance; it was the good
Part of the continuous change that was
Everything, and it was change itself in going.

Corner of Fifth & Kildare, Slocanada, 29 May 2017

If I live long enough to look back on these
Three weeks with any distance, so to speak,
I think I will remember them fondly, thought
Body. Yes, distance is a metaphor, like any
Other, one that slides like a loose-fitting lid
Over all the changes the language tries
To contain. It's a better cover than I
Have been, self added, to comfort body.
Given the mediocrity of our joint abilities
And the probabilistic normalcy of our luck,
It was luckier than we dared to expect,
When we weren't fantasizing mad victory,
Just to have made it to these three weeks
Of quiet and lazy ease in the villages
By the woods on the lake turning to spring,
After the farewell that seemed likely forever
Nine months earlier. Mind, always reeling
With bulletins from the intersubjective
And invasive hunger of the world outside
Tried to pull a volume off the shelf to prove
That this tranquility at the edge of the great
Falls roaring all around the lake, roaring
With spring rain and snowmelt and gravity,
Would endure at least partly, render better
Whatever dread cacophony came after
When, like all fugitives from the law
Of averages, we'd been swept away, down, and out.

Fish Lake, British Columbia, 28 May 2017

Do not disturb the mountain toad.
It clucks like a chicken, mates in a pond,
Smaller males clutching fast to the backs
Of larger females and riding around on them.
And when the tadpoles lose their tails
They migrate from the shore into the trees.
It is an endangered species with no sense
Of the risk involved in crossing a highway
From the pond to get to those lovely trees.
Daughter sometimes would assist a toad
In safely crossing a road. More often
She would dare to disturb them, happily
Picking up a mating pair from pond's edge
And carrying them about like a gob of mud,
The male clutching and clucking atop
The silent, stolid female waiting to release
Her gut-busting burden of black eggs.
Daughter captured adults, skeins of eggs,
And squirming tadpoles by the bucket. Also,
Their enemies, the snakes that timed
And situated their own breeding to maximize
A chance to batten their young on frogs,
She captured those too, catch-and-release,
The frantic linearity whipping in her net
As if it were caught on eagle's talons.
This afternoon she waded in after "a huge,
White toad, the biggest one ever," only
To haul up a badly bloated corpse. Body
Revulsed as the swollen memento mori
Swung near. What would it be like to be
An animal for whom proximity to rotting flesh
Was intensely appetizing? Self snorted,
Having already commanded daughter
To dump the odiferous revenant back
In the drink. After all, my friend, what is it
You do when you peruse texts composed
By the long dead but to salivate over
Your own approach to the rotting remnants
Of bloated thoughts bursting with culture?

Becker's Beach, Slocanada, 27 May 2017

Back under the cluster of maples as the lake
Rose with snowmelt in the afternoon sun:
What does an animal without language think
On waking from a vivid dream? One doubts
There's a vocabulary for relief, much less
An equivalent for "whew, just a dream."
Then again, many humans with languages
Would never have thought "just a dream"
Either. Message, prophecy, revelation come
Down the royal road from the unconscious,
Visitation from a lost relative, another world,
Any of those. Still, they require language
To imagine, don't they? Body thought this
After another intimate encounter with water.
Floating in distorted light was a way
Of dreaming while remaining awake.
If there were no way of parsing a dream
As a narrative, a message, a haunting, or
Whatever language could explain, then what
Would be the experience of waking
From the middle of one? The light on waves,
Which would be to say, the waves on waves,
Wove a fine shawl around those questions.
You were dreaming when you gave them
Your name, son, but they don't know when
You're gone, when coming after them.
It's not what you remembered. It's a weapon.
The language you use is its whetstone.

Change Makes Time Mark Changes, Slocanada, 26 May 2017

Was it possible to prefer second acts, middle
Siblings, those in-between things actually
Arriving in between rather than announcing
Themselves in grand opening lines as being
In medias res? If not, it was also not possible
To prefer being alive to thinking about it.
Consider communication without language.
No stories, no questions, no opinions, no
Advice, no beginnings, no endings, no linear
Ellipses . . . No being human and no middles,
Middles being everything ever and always
But somehow nothing without punctuation.
Life was legion and death only individual,
The singular conclusion, so life overwhelmed
Death like an army led by atrocious generals
That conquered by sheer force of corpses,
The living scrambling over the heaps of dead
Until the next bunker of remorseless time
Was taken, time to take another. Time, be
Not proud, though some have sworn you
Were timeless as a dimension. Time, thou
Shalt change. And there we were, troops
In trenches again, after all that chaos. Well,
The middle is all of it and No Man's Land
As well. Self announced to mind in body
Thusly, I never felt entirely myself when
Talking or singing, least of all face to face,
Only when writing, when I knew I was most
Obscured and therefore closest to a truth.
It was in the midst of just such an assertion,
One so composed, of course, not spoken,
That I lifted up my face, my eyes, compound
Of thought and flesh and borrowed soul,
To see a shadowed pennant, a real one,
Flutter in the wind so that, from my tenuous
Perspective, the few amber street lamps of
This little village flickered SOS in semaphore.

The Fairy Tale Cafe, Nakusp, British Columbia, 25 May 2017

Daughter danced among the tchotchkes,
Giving the porcelain fairies names, noting
A fairy with a baby, madonna with dragonfly
Wings, another caressing her swelling belly.
Body sitting heavily at a window two-top
Wondered about fairy reproduction. Surely,
Parthenogenetic? This particular species
At least seemed to have no male members,
And no elderly godmother types neither,
Just many fair-skinned young women
With long legs and high breasts, dressed
In tattered drapery that somehow did not
Interfere with their shoulder-perched wings,
Whether of the butterfly or dragonfly style.
Outside, a chainsaw-carved wooden sign
Announced the Fairytale Cafe, today soaked
In the Canadian rain. But inside, while many
Of the aforementioned fairies perched
On mantels, shelves, and sills, no reference
To known wonder tales, famed or obscure,
Added to the gilded wood decor. The menu
Was pastries, soup, and sandwiches, none
Linked to fairy motifs. The owner/server/chef
Was a tall, solid, kindly woman of middle age
And Germanic accent. Mind consulted self,
Beginning to suspect this was an actual
Portal, here across the grey, wet street
From the dull motel in the nondescript
Neighborhood of small, crouching houses,
The kind of scene that sprouted banal adjectives
Like encircling rings of mushrooms, too
Perfectly circular not to suspect of purpose.
The kindly woman served daughter an extra
Sweet on a tiny plate imprinted with another
Of the local type of fairy. Perhaps she was
A witch? Perhaps the wonder tale should
Start with the promise of fairies bewitching
Handel and Gretel into the rococo cottage?
Perhaps an alien race resembled these
Simultaneous concatenations of flying
Insects, young mothers, and maidens?
Culture curled a wisp of tail the way a cloud
Will hang a line of mist like a single-file
Column of straggling angels across a cliff.
It was in the room. It was whispering
Something about how to haunt the beasts.

Becker's Beach, Slocanada, 24 May 2017

Why not, as the wise men and the wise
Guys say. Why not return another day?
Body ached with the gorgeous embrace
Of the warming but still cold water touching
Every fingerprint, every follicle, every
Inch of skin as the hands like waterbirds
Dove headfirst into the small waves again
And again, pulling. Sometimes the rhyme
Is so rich the mind hallucinates, I was, really,
Here right here, in this moment, doing this
Just this many, many times before. All
Has been returned to me, all that was
Given has become forgiven, foreword to this
Which is what it was and never, really, went
Away. When a human, swimming or not,
Begins to opine on what is or isn't real,
Thought self, courtesy of body and mind,
Both still floating in the translucent green
Of what felt like a portal under the waves
Opening a view onto something like forever,
Be suspicious. The real itself was the best
Fiction the human collective ever presented
On surfacing with the distinction between
Is so and is not so clenched like a rusty nail
From the long-ago docks rotting under us.

Becker's Beach, Slocanada, 23 May 2017

I will have said, he thought, some wise,
In fact peculiarly wise, things before I die
Of foolishness and lies. What gives? What
Gave me the right to opine? Hypocrisy
Is the gift of the Lord, and messages
Are the Lord. Or, in an alternate version
Of uncertain provenance, ate the Lord.
Either way messages replicate and carry
The day. The ants were out for reproduction
And the winged drones kept lighting on me
And wandering, one would say, hopelessly,
Except that what is hopeless in the individual
Is, in the whole population, winning strategy,
And that's what people should really mean
When they think to say Darwinian. Poor man,
To have given his name to what horrified him
And hence, hypocrisy. Aii! Hence, hypocrisy!

Centennial Park, Slocanada, 22 May 2017

Oh write something pleasant already, said
The glittering lake on a holiday. You may be
Down to your last playing piece, last hand,
Last possible subterfuge before the people
Tasked with such responsibilities start taking
Your freedom away from you, before the frog
In your lungs spawns, before your rotting
Organs pull out all the stops in, what, a week
Or two? Or maybe you can squeak past
The closing gates for a few more moves, but
Either way the day is exceptionally fine
Without you, so feel lucky for the view
And write in a giving mood. At the beach
Of gravel, subdued waves reflected blue
At an angle, allowing, from another slice,
Glimpses of pebbles deeper than all
But the most capable human could dive,
And the body on the shore whispered
Back to the glitter, so nobody else could
Hear except that heedless water, I love you.

Over Kootenay Lake, British Columbia, 21 May 2017

The sheriff's helicopter banked and then
Cut close enough to the trees to count
The needles, en passant, each passenger
A captured pawn in the game of comments
On how beautiful is this perpendicular,
Swooping world. A whirling miracle,
Impossible to contemplate two centuries ago
And improbable still a century after that,
Might as well have been a village fair pony
Ride by the time the 21st-century daughter
Was boosted into her bucket seat and belted
Against the unthinkable fall from the sky.
We're all angels here now, and utterly
Enchanted and terrified. What we climb
By the invisible mind of cooperation, not
Just between the living, but down, down
Tens or hundreds of generations, is empty
Of any explanation for how or who we are.

Camp Cafe, Silverton, Slocanada, 20 May 2017

It was a race to discover who would fall apart
First, body, self or world. The winner earned
A soul, an actual soul. Meantime there was
Chili con carne with cornbread to consume
And a blueberry muffin for daughter. Life,
Like Bob Frost swore it would, went on.
Hands itched to check the news again.
Eyes wandered to the plate glass storefront
To watch a clouds' parliament over the lake.
I would hold my breath, thought self, if
It weren't that the act would decide the race
In body's favor and against me. Let the world
Win. No shame watching from a rocky shore
Of an inland lake with the other villagers
As the missiles streaked through the sky.
Embarrassment belongs to the individual.
No one will apologize at the Apocalypse.
Time to pay the tab and tip, then carry on.

New Denver Laundromat, Slocanada, 19 May 2017

Not half so dislocating for the fantasized self
As the cold water in the lake, the steamy air
Of the dowdy but serviceable launderette
That Wendy Harlock bought so that hikers
And campers would continue to find
The Slocan at least as welcoming now as in
The era of hippies vs. loggers, draft dodgers
And back-to-Earthers like herself comforted.
Machines and textiles, marriage made
In dark satanic mills two centuries ago, long
As marriages go, renewing their vows,
Tumbled together. Body sat at the window
With a view of an alternately drizzly, sunny,
Mostly empty street and the snowy ice field
Hanging over the green cone of Valhalla.
We have to get clean, have to attend
To our maintenance, from the earliest of all
Life forms to the last. We are machines,
Washing and drying our textile selves
For the sole purpose of wearing out threads.

Garden Graces, Slocanada, 18 May 2017

There's always room in a human for remorse,
For at least the nagging notion something
Could be done better. That's what the runes
Suggested until they hinted something else.
Donna Jean did the interpreting. Body did
The pulling out of the velvet bag. Gift.
Gate. Nourishment. Plenitude before
The pause that releases the past. Self
Did the wishing that, for this once, the year
Would be a benison, a mercy, when all signs
Were that it would be difficult and highly
Unpleasant merely to survive, the last year
Of either life or relative respect and freedom.
Daughter played outside in the blossoms
Of a late-arriving spring, picking bunches
From the branches and the ground, pink,
Blue, and white. Inside the shop, encaustics
Hung on the walls, poppets sat on shelves,
And the soul, which flitted between words
And runes, a mayfly refusing all acquiring,
Touched the walls as if artworks were Braille.

Nakusp Hot Springs, British Columbia, 17 May 2017

Two dozen overweight, elderly persons, one
Pregnant mother floating her first baby, two
Young adults, and one six year-old girl
Paddled about in the steam as rain drizzled
And mists reclined on the wooded slopes
Around. Hummingbirds fought dogfights
At the half-dozen hanging feeders. A raven
That could have flown straight from a Norse
Kenning about battlefields, it was that large,
Cut a glide out of the mists, over the pools.
How many games can a drifting primate play
Without upsetting the balance of power
Between the warmth and the chill? Daughter
Ducked under, blew bubbles, piggy backed,
Held her breath from one end of the pool
To the other. We all test ourselves, especially
When we go into the woods to relax. The count
Lowered steadily as the afternoon advanced.
Soon only three older couples plus
Body and daughter remained. An hour
Or two was about all anyone could take
Of the relative cessation of aches and pains,
Of casual contentment before lumbering
Out, dripping and extra wrinkled, body
After body, after body, to rinse and dry,
To change into acceptable clothing, to drive
Away down the winding green canyon road.

Kaslo, British Columbia, 16 May 2017

It rained on the Ghost Highway, going out
And coming back. In between, the sun shone
For a few hours on Kaslo. No bears this time.
No deer, even. A beaver grooming its lodge.
Let's not say anything about this. Let's just
Compose ourselves around the little
That happened. A visit to a store. A visit
To another store. Lunch at a familiar cafe.
Daughter asked why the steamboat stayed
At dock permanently and didn't carry
Passengers across the lake anymore. Self
Thought it would be nice to have a boat
Like that for a house. We played at the park.
Daughter had an ice-cream that she savored
All the way home. Nothing that happened
Had any halo of extra significance. That's all.

Hors de Combat, Old Forest Service Building, Slocanada, 15 May 2017

Velvet black petunias bordered the garden.
Body wanted to finger the petals. Details
Arranged the passing of a day. Mothers
Were feted yesterday. Two small girls
Ran circles around a corner hot-dog vendor
In spattering rain. At the village grocery,
Neighbors chatted amiably about the chill,
When of course the contrarian clouds parted
For an hour, partly, as if peaks were fingers
Carding the raw, wet wool. Down at the lake
Only one fool foolish enough for a cold swim
Lasting scarcely two minutes in the waves.
Then back to a musty relic of a bureaucracy
No longer ascendant in these regrowing
Woods. Out of the fight, but carried along
With the sunset, the crows, the daughter
Watching a decades-old cartoon of She-Ra
Leading the Rebels, combating the Horde,
The same goofy story that every story is,
A crisis strikes a settled world, a hero arises.
Naming what was, heaping up phrases
Like these into a pile of text only made
Something more for a dust pan to carry off.
There was no dust pan, only more dust, but
Change will do it in time. Think on that,
Whatever your own details, however
Important they are in your world, whatever
Cartoon god you or your children revere,
Revered as children. Change will do it
In time. Cosmos contorts itself in that phrase
Or that phrase marks a singular contortion,
And no physicist or philosopher yet can say
What it means or doesn't. Was. Is. Wasn't.

The Grand Opening of Bean's Greenhouse, Hills, Slocanada, 14 May 2017

Snow remained low on the mountains
After a stern winter. The sun was a surprise.
The forecast had cited thunderstorms
Then drizzly showers and overcast skies.
None of it. Silver-headed, cloudy elders
Arrived in the morning to find flowers.
Little children showed up eventually,
Cavorting between the greenhouses,
Building forts, making trouble for parents
Who were trying to appear in control
In front of the elders also trying to appear
In control of their own times and lives.
A teacup Yorkie, ten years old, dodged
The feet of adults, panting and begging
And growling at the towheaded toddler
Determined to make the doggy his friend.
Hours went by. A parade of people, a braid
Of ants carrying crumbs, each with a flat
Of seedlings or flowers, proceeded away
From the semi-translucent hangars
Of hothouse delicates planted among
The mountains, whose snow remained low.
A black bear cub foraged by the highway.
A road crew stripped a length of asphalt
For resurfacing. The children grubbed
In the cheese plate, the cookie dish,
The condiments, and chewed on hot dogs.
Ishi rolled a cigarette and finally sat down.
Nicky the Crawler, nearly deaf now, growing
Forgetful, but still jittery and singing,
Demanded of body the answer to a question
More like a fragmented sermon: "People,
People don't care what they put in the air.
I'm not going to get all heavy, but you see,
You know what's in the air. I care. You don't,
Do you? I got my answer. What's your name?
Don't worry, I'll still smile at you and say hi."
Forest and Fox, siblings, had to go. The sun
Still fenced with the clouds and the lake
Called out, also singing, "I got your answer.
Don't worry. I'll still shine at you and be cold."

Dark Spring, Slocanada, 13 May 2017

Clouds clutched the Slocan Valley like men
Afraid of drowning clutch a bobbing spar.
Don't try to rescue them, someone said,
Aware that three years ago here, or wherever
Then most resembled this here, three men
Drowned in waters like these heaving waves
That were pounding the shore today, three
Very young men and the one young woman
They tried to heave back into the overturned
Canoe. The memorial to all four could be
Seen by body slapped sidewise by waves
Just a few quick strokes away from shore.
Within three minutes, at most four, fingers
Start to numb and the cold flickers through
The nerves with a sensation like sparks,
Like lightning, like an electrical experiment
Gone terribly wrong, and body convulses,
Convinced that self can't understand
The need to get out, which self does
Understand, wanting however another out
Requiring more cold, more depth, not land.

BC Hutterite Chickens, Slocanada, 12 May 2017

The flying, drug-drinking, long-haired sage
Of the Rig Veda had been replaced by body,
The hobbling, abstemious, close-cropped
Fool fond of Legba. At the petrol station
Cornering the rural highway and the village,
Hand-lettered poster boards advertised
Various meats, halibut from the coast, trout
More local, bacon from down the road,
And a new item for this summer, Hutterite
Chickens from somewhere in the province.
All good gifts for hungry omnivores,
And the greater world, the whole, is one.
Body cruised by thinking of the water,
Of what gifts gods and intercessors prefer,
At least according to their worshippers
Anxious to keep the best cuts themselves
But not to lose favor with fate or magic,
Tobacco or soma, a little cornmeal, bones.
There will be no flying in this religion, self
Thought within body. There were men
Getting a motorboat ready to take out
After winter under wraps. Parents watched
Children scuff a dandelion-infested pitch
With their soccer cleats. Clouds packed
In tight for a look, silver vultures, at body
Teetering down to the shore on two sticks,
Determined for breathtaking submersion and
Requesting an open gate. No flying
Anymore, not in this world. Floating.

Mountainberry, Slocanada, 11 May 2017

The possibility was real. We were

The horses of the 21st century. You studied

Photographs taken in the earlier fin de siecle

And photographs from twenty years later,

Particularly of urban scenes. What

Did you see? Horses, horses everywhere 

In the earlier images, automobiles clogging

The thoroughfares of the latter. It won't be

So obvious from imagery this century, but

If you can think back to the beginning

Of this artificial fantasy, you may recall

Humans, bleeding humans, responsible

For a greater and more substantial variety

Of things than they now seem to have

In hand. You went down to the sacred store

Where you knew the clerk from years before,

And you asked him why the sign "For Sale."

His answer was he himself had become

Too expensive to compete with the robot

Dispensing advice from across the street.

No, you couldn't see it. Across the street

Was a grassy lot beside a small motel.

And then you did. The robot dwelled across

A commercial thoroughfare, in the air,

Neither here or there, and gave you credit

Or not from deep within the new machine,

Which had its reasons, none you'd seen.

Bigelow Bay, Slocanada, 10 May 2017

The merman who said he didn't believe
In land, that fixed places were all myths,
Insisted he meant this as a compliment.
What's haunting about a rhyme, he sang,
Is exactly that the similarity, that familiarity
Of the new word as the old word's ringing,
Is the ghost of a possibility that some thing
Has survived and returned intact, essentially
Itself, after having gone under, away.
A rhyme and a shoreline and a mind waking
Are all kin, and that kinship's closeness
Gives us the shiver that maybe sometimes
Things evade time, stay still, remain.
Body talked to the merman after a swim
In the bay that felt like just such a return
To a place that kept existing while unseen,
To which body returned to find the same.
You see? said the merman. You know
This is fiction. I honor it by calling it myth.
This passing of the waves that trouble us
Contains such resonant likenesses we think
We are back where we were, when neither
We nor where are what once was here
Under Valhalla, in glittering, doddering sun.

Adela, Slocanada, 9 May 2017

After dinner in the woods, the wanderers
Returned to the bosom of moss and duff,
The hosts brought out a surprise rather
Than a dessert: a frozen hummingbird,
Rufous, on a plate. He had crashed
Into plate glass during a territorial, aerial
Contest and died with his famous tongue,
Perfect for nectar, still protruding
From his calligraphic beak, a thin black flag.
Body and daughter were encouraged
To examine the cliched iridescence
Of the scale-like, sequin-bright feathers,
Using flashlight and magnifying glasses
Of various intensities. And what did we see?
Daughter most noticed the black bead
Of an eye; body most tried to follow
The way a shimmer would start on one side
And then trail across the broken back.
Then it was time to leave, to descend
The highway ribbon like a zip line
Into Silverton, out of Silverton, into
New Denver. An old, decommissioned
Forest service building broken up into
Four flats awaited. The lake, the lake shone
Armored scales and silver sequins, dark.

Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, 8 May 2017

Sun hit the corner sushi bar in the phony
Village of pretended neighborhood shops.
Commentary completed. Daughter ate
Nigiri with her fingers to avoid either
The embarrassment of chopsticks or forks.
Body sipped a beer and wolfed down squid
With the disposable sticks from paper
Sleeves that said the world a tossing is.
On the only and final journey of the self
The day rotated sedately toward uncertain
End. We spend so much life wondering
About death largely because we can't
Imagine very far ahead. Death solves this
Inadequacy. Those who die have only
Simple darkness to imagine. Body thought
It was impressive to think such things.
Daughter was more interested in testing
The point at which lemonade mixed
With water became more water than
Lemonade. Sun hit the corner of the sushi
Bar in the suburban heart of nowhere.

Butte, Montana, 7 May 2017

Memories blew like plastic bags across
The freeway when the thunderstorm came,
Change rearranging differences change made.
Last year, body and daughter rode these hills
Trying to find the one-night rental near
The giant open-pit copper mine, under
The white statue of Mary on the mountain,
Passing a wedding outside a small chapel
And several scruffy neighborhoods before
Settling on a strange side street, tiny houses
That had been miner's cottages, various
Stages of upkeep and renovation, tiny yards,
All sun, quiet. This time we settled in a hotel
And, when the sudden storm crashed around,
Sat by the window and watched how
Weather made the same story out of this
Town as of nearly any other town, shadows
Flickering, cars plowing through puddles,
Rain blurring the differences rain made.

North Plaza Parking Lot, Saint George, Utah, 6 May 2017

This would be a memory now, if not yet
Forgotten. There was a hole in the wall,
A literal window punched out of windowless
Cinderblock unalleviated by anything
Else but a coat of interior white paint.
Under said window, which was a luxury,
Somebody spent his working days for years.
It was not a prison, as often as he thought
It functioned as a helpful cell for that
And other thoughts. In his last days
Working there, his view increasingly
Was blocked by the multistory structure
Rising across the parking lot, cement pour
By cement pour, two-by-four by two-by-four
With red and yellow cranes on top,
And he fondly imagined Bruegel's Tower,
Not the great or little oils on wood,
Although those were the only images
His mind had, but the lost miniature
Painted on ivory, the idea of which charmed
Him with its almost angels-on-the-head
Of-a-pin absurdity. Who paints the Tower
To Heaven, the one that alarmed the Divine
Enough to confuse our human languages,
Turn us into crazy ants, slow us down
Before we reached into the vaults of power,
As a miniature in Rome? He would smile,
Watching the ordinary, slapdash building
Likely either to fall into proverbial desuetude
And be torn down within decades
For something else in its place or to topple
Over in one of the earthquakes also ordinary,
However easily forgotten, in that lava-strewn
Town, and imagine it rising into deep night,
Tickling the chins of sleeping God, crane
After crane, every worker humming along
In the same tongue, escaping the world.
Then he would turn out the lights
In the office and watch the cars leave the lot,
As the actual building went quiet until dawn.
Time to close the blinds, he thought.

Mnemonic, Utah, 5 May 2017

This is what you should know whenever
You wake up. Many people, human beings,
Members of your species perished
While you slept, some by violence, some
By starvation, some by sudden disease,
Most by finally falling apart. Many people
Are dying as you dress and more will die
All through your day, even if you get through
Without being close to any death yourself.
And while everyone is dying even more
Are being born who will one day all die, too.
That's what you should know whenever
You wake, whenever you worry, whenever
You twitch with thoughts of your own death.

Dream State University, Utah, 4 May 2017

There were those experiences one thought
Had happened, part of being awake, self,
Alive, and those experiences that schooled
One in the demon arts and sciences of sleep
Among the living. It was an open university,
Rather small and with no actual graduate
Programs, only one level of degree to do
And then be done. It had palm trees, a logo,
A mascot, a slogan. It had classrooms
And green lawns with concrete sidewalks.
It had a stadium and tennis courts, a library,
A few labs, and a center for performing arts
Where just the other day, under blue skies,
One might have heard wild laughter coming
From a darkened hall, perhaps leading away
To a practice stage, while overhead choirs
Rehearsed until the roof reverberated
And, simultaneously, dead ahead, with those
Waves and changes in the ears, the eyes
Could see a silent body with white hair
And amorphous physique struggle silently
Down a flight of carpeted stairs, a trick,
However unintentioned, like all dreams,
Like real dreams that could be escaped,
But, to the graduating mind, not the same,
Although the laughter echoed around
The white-haloed head that never turned
And the dim scene groaned with hosannas.

Angels, Alarums, Saint George, Utah, 3 May 2017

One found, arising ex nihilo, an entire
Mythology at once, the mythology
Of anything arising ex nihilo. Nothing
Arises without something in the way
Of a remarkably similar prequel. "I know,
Although the universe may go on a long time
I won't," said Martin Rhys, cosmologist,
Explaining why he couldn't take a long view
Stuck in traffic, even though the long view
He best knew. This too, had preface, priors,
Came from somewhere, good as to say
Came from everywhere like everything.
Body, pounding heart and splintered joints,
Leaned back in a chair behind a soon to be
Abandoned window currently filled
With angled western cathedral light
Through the mute choir of picture clouds.
One would have thought, thought body,
There were angels, finally, that didn't look
At all like me or us. How satisfying. The day
Itself, this day of self, had had a double
Beginning, a stutter, a false start, a fetch.
When the shattering alarm rang in the dark,
Body flung an arm at it to stop it and self
Arose from the dead, ex nihilo, but no
Longer from nothing as soon as again it was,
And together they stumbled with me
To the bathroom and the kitchen, noticing
How unusually bright the predawn stars,
How unusually quiet the toy town, tourist
Town outside, until it dawned on self, cued
No doubt by frantic signals hammering
Noiselessly from the subconscious brain,
That it was not the hour for waking up
At all, that it was the darkest hour, or one
Of them. There had never been an alarm.
Body had dreamed an alarm as we slept
And self had leapt back into existence,
Feeling remarkably alert for once, but
It was all a parasomnia, and now the day
Had to be folded back away, body dragged
Back to bed, self scolded, all of us hoping
To get back to sleep, go away, those who
Could go, until another alarm, a real morning
When it came. And it did, of course, and we
Dragged through it all again and all the rest
Until there we were, body in the chair,
Self in the clouds, and me in the light
I wanted to know from nothing, ex nihilo.

I Am a Man Who Looks Like a Carcass (and Title It That!), Temple Mesa, Utah, 2 May 2017

No one asks the stained glass what it thinks
Of being stained, of being pieces assembled
By another species, but the panes of stained
Glass windows in those older cathedrals
Are mostly the monastic class of fairies,
And their work, their prayer, their meditation
Is to one day become clear. That is, they are
Themselves the color that inheres, their lives
Measured by the fading changes humans
Tend to name time. Fading is their discipline
Made of time, and the fairy monks and nuns
Practice freeing themselves more swiftly
And surely from the illusory patterns thrown
By the polychrome shadows stretched long
Across stone floors. To be perfectly clear
Means to absent the glass altogether, to be
As the glass, as purely translucent, full
Spectrum blankness, empty and open
To the light. For the stains, to be clear is
To be gone or to be as gone, to be nothing,
A fairy soul non-self of no color, no shadow,
No obstacle. To the human awarenesses
Below, myopic, bathing our sight in the soft,
Polytropic fictions glinting in their panes,
It would seem a loss to lose the modulating
Colors, the stories they preserve, our dream
Of holy timelessness, but, fortunately,
Perhaps, few humans last as long as the hue
Of any cloistered fairy, anchorite of the light.
Still, the brothers and sisters, no matter
How deep-dyed, are disciplined and will
Eventually wing away again as invisible flight.
For now, every single stained pane is a tiny
Passion of its own, surrendered, body bright,
And every ascension, rose, and crucifixion
Is a marriage of stained souls, rich or faint,
To the clear, hard, brittle-blown transparent
Facts also shifting slowly, reluctant to let go,
That admit the ever-moving outer light.

The Forest of the Infinite, Utah, 1 May 2017

Happy to be finally lost here, finally arrived
At wilderness, the wanderer observed
Contentedly it has no end. Now it begins,
The runaway exile with knapsack and kettle
On his back, ready to perish in the trees,
Nothing strange, nothing dreadful about that
Death of a bosky, biting gnat. Something
To gnaw on, the gristle of perspective,
The wanderer thought. And what makes
A wanderer anyway? The amount of travel,
The constant walking, what? I say longing,
Longing makes even the stationary version
Of the indefinite wanderer stray. The trees
Are tall and dark; they pack together
Like herd animals, although it's light, not
Safety they're seeking. The trees are lean
Philosophers contending. The wanderer
Is a firefly, a fairy, a nincompoop, a dream.