Friday, February 1, 2013

Through the Fire Exit, Down the Rabbit Hole



Kickoff 2013

May You Always Find the Way Out of Locked Places


A Gerbera daisy dropped
On a moist forest floor

In the lateness of your night
In the morning of my day

Hands reach across sheets
Hands reach across states

Fingertips touch sun-tanned skin
Bathed in Mother Ocean
Dried by Brother Wind

In the early pre-dawn
Before roosters crow
Or owls fly home
I know you are awake

Next to nothing between us
Before the map of a planet

Our earthen nature absorbs
The shock and terror
We know capable of love

Your grotto filled with water
Once empty the day before

The fire pit spat ash
Burned from dead flowers
Covered us like dust used to find
Crime scene fingerprints

Pilfered bamboo survives
Huddled in a clump
Plot of dirt saved for flowers

Chairs circle sacred space
Guarded by the old woman living
On the wild corner of the lot

She stirs her iron vat of brine
Boils down our bone baggage
Until the yellow marrow melts

Wheel barrow the color of rust
Mixing bowl for bloody mortar

Bonds your flat rock children
Wall sloped for sliding rain water

Sets pumice cinder-blocks in cement
Sharpens the corners around my heart

Trees with poison ivy spread red pain
Tree with chain embedded in bark rind
Trunk absorbs pain and strain it survives

Tannenbaum thanked three times
Held green bushy needles close
The pine surrendered to the New Year.