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A Kite
I saw a kite caught in a tree -
A dream I thought belonged to me.
I lost one there, some years ago,
In autumn wind, before the snow.
It left me for an urge to fly,
To ride a surge into the sky.
I dreamed it sailed across the sea,
But someday would return to me.
An Apricot Tree Grew
An apricot tree grew
In the backyard of my youth,
Blossoming in spring -
Lightly floating downward flowers,
Bound earthward,
Branches reaching for truth,
Greeting young eyes with symmetry,
And the sweet sweet scent,
Succulent with season,
Bearing fruit for the eating,
There for a reason.
And what was meant
By the view,
Who’s to say?
Huckleberry Picking
Let’s go huckleberry picking, shall we?
(Like we did before up on Cedar Saddle)
We’ll hike the peak to the snow line,
With thoughts of huckleberry pies to motivate us,
And the going as much as the eating,
Until we find our prize;
A world of bountiful underbrush,
The tart red ones, the sweet black ones,
And the dark ones beneath the cedars
Alive with pine essence.
We’ll battle the yellow jackets for their claim,
The day completely forgotten until evening,
When stomachs and vessels are filled to capacity.
Then we shall concede, as Alexander,
Our hands stained from conquest,
That there was too much territory to conquer,
Too much treasure for the looting.
Bearing our berries, like Sherpas home from expedition,
Blue lips joyful and singing,
We will find our way homeward in the growing shadows,
Still thinking of huckleberry picking -
And the pie only an afterthought.
Hunting And Finding
I hunted deer in my youth,
And found one, as elusive as truth,
Come from the shadows
To drink,
As I sat near a stream
- And my Winchester there,
Forgotten, at my feet.
Walking On Holy Water
Do you remember when
We followed a stream down through a glen,
And found a wheat field growing there
Like golden waves of angel hair?
And blew a breeze of heaven sent
Across the flowing tides of grain.
Across an amber sea we went,
Across a magic plain.
Then from her bed, leapt up a fawn,
Like Neptune’s agile daughter.
And we followed after her till dawn,
Walking on holy water.
Warm, Wet, Embrace
With a voice of sirens she sings,
With broad bold lips,
Whispers from a distance,
Smiles with perfect teeth,
Beckons me, her silken face,
Skin smooth and azure,
Wraps seductive fingers around me,
Spreads her skirt fro
Voluptuous rolling hips,
Draws it back a bit to show
Her petty coat beneath,
Edged in silvery lace,
Luring and retreating
My inordinate lust to entice.
I succumb without resistance,
With unconfined wings
Sail out to meet her,
I the holy ghost, and she
The virgin entreating,
Rolling me off to paradise,
Into her warm wet embrace.
Blowing Dandelions
Some say the dandelion is a weed.
But I insist it is a golden star
That turns from sun to quasar,
And sows the earth with celestial seed.
The notion may seem farfetched at first,
Until one realizes a dandelion’s thirst
For life and proliferation, the desire
To go from seed to heavenly fire.
I smile when I spy, on some manicured yard,
A dandelion sun shining brightly on the sward,
Prying up through a lawn in glorious form,
Through the most thunderous gardener’s storm,
Defying the mower’s effort to darken skies,
Like some immortal escape artist’s surprise.
Late night, when stars twinkle remotely,
Like dandelion parachutes floating across eternity,
I think, possibly, that somewhere out there,
A boy has been blowing dandelions into the air.
Salamanders
My desire
Was to catch fire -
Salamanders in an alpine lake.
I had made the same mistake,
Numerous times before,
Of trying to wage elemental war.
And there I was, once more,
Seduced by mythical lore,
Armed with fire bucket and resolution,
Believing I had a solution
All worked out.
I had no doubt
That this time I would succeed
In capturing the fiery breed.
I stealthily stalked,
On hot coals walked,
Until I was so near
I could feel a salamander’s heat sear
My feeble attempt
With burning contempt.
At the edge of the moss it blazed.
For an instant I was dazed.
Then I made my move,
Snatched, felt fire in the groove
Of my palm, then only mud, moss-smoke,
A salamander’s joke.
Again, I had been spurned.
My fingers had been burned.
Picking Up Pebbles
She said she would look for rocks,
Pretty pebbles, and shiny stones,
To arrange as border blocks,
To order her garden in zones.
But she saved a fallen star,
Gathered up fragments of lost space
Where they had scattered afar,
And gave them a pertinent place.
The Promised Land
We pilgrimaged hand in hand,
Along the straight and narrow streets,
To the promised land,
In an exodus for sweets,
To the gates of paradise,
Where a heavenly angel waited
Behind an array of flavored ice -
The blessing we had anticipated
There in the counter glowing,
The fruits of our desire,
Like milk and honey flowing!
Manna to cool our earthly fire!
Treat Or Trick
Candy was no good for Halloween treats.
It made trick-or-treaters misbehave, gave them tooth decay.
And so she vowed to do away with sweets,
By giving away something wholesome, in the way
Of scones, cold unsweetened scones.
Scones would put the white in their smiles,
And a righteous marrow in their bones.
Folks would hear of her wisdom for miles.
My brothers, and sisters, and I went
Under duress – our mother’s threats of pain in hell
If we did not willingly assent,
And politely wish our well-meaning neighbor well.
Thus, we accepted our neighborly obligation,
Chirped Halloween wishes, gleefully assertive,
And waited out the tedious parable, considering incineration
In hell as an acceptable alternative.
With uplifted goody bags, we accepted shortening bread,
Grateful, at least, that we had costumes to mask any insincerity,
And that we could then be moving on, instead,
To certain Halloween trick-or-treating prosperity.
I even took a bite for my mother’s sake,
And for my neighbor’s delight, even insisted my brother
Give his a try, then and there. Like birthday cake!
But I kept moving for fear she’d offer me another.
In the rustle of autumn leaves, it isn’t hard
To spit without your mother hearing,
And clandestinely throw a scone across a yard.
With so many other scones thrown about, there was no fearing
That anyone would ever find out whose scone was whose,
Unless teeth marks and dental records were investigated,
And a thorough search was done of treat baskets for clues.
And then, the whole neighborhood would be implicated.
For there was always a trail of bread in every direction,
Scattered along the sidewalks and lawns in ghoulish cheer;
A map laid out by ghost and goblin insurrection,
To help them find their way back next year.
Sport
We called it nigger-knocking,
But whether niggers knocked and ran
Was nothing we could know, having no niggers in town.
But we served as diligent surrogates.
We set our sleepy town rocking,
Evenings, after church, enough to make them ban
Meetings on weekdays, afraid we’d pound the doors down.
But where opportunity knocks, effort never abates.
Old ladies were against the rules,
And gentle folks who smiled and wished us well
Even if we chided them from down the street.
And we never picked on the poor, for fear they’d take it too hard.
Employees from any churches or schools
Were prime targets, those who would damn us to hell
From their porches, those who kept their lawns too neat
Or put up signs to keep neighbor kids out of the yard,
And especially the toughies who were really determined to catch us,
Waiting up nights in ambush, ready for the chase,
Angrier each time we foiled a clever plot
By infiltrating their Maginot Lines, and tearing their egos apart.
The primary object was to raise enough fuss
To pick up the monotonous small-town pace.
The sport was to not get caught.
And the escape bordered on art.
Tree House
It wasn’t very square,
But neither was the tree,
Both formed of deviating wood.
To say it was haphazard would be fair,
Speaking purely of symmetry.
We had done the best we could
To make it practical,
From a boy’s point of view.
View and concealment were what really mattered,
The main consideration being tactical.
For materiel, we had to make do
With slivery planks that we found scattered
Here and about, along garden fences and back doors,
Nicked from behind neighbor’s garages and sheds,
And rusted nails accrued from boards, pulled, and pounded straight.
We scraped up enough scraps for multiple walls and floors,
A semi-watertight roof over our heads,
And a rope ladder, with a trap door for a gate.
And when we had it made, we had it made!
We had a castle in the shade of a Norwegian pine,
High in a pine, where no adult meddling could reach,
A sanctuary from injun siege and pirate raid.
We stayed always vigilant, on watch for the first sign
Of invasion, with imaginary cannons at each
Corner, pine-cone hand grenades, and fence-picket swords.
Though we were attacked by more than a score
Of prowling cats, and robins singing out our position,
No external force ever conquered our tree or boards.
In the end, it was the enemy within that brought us to the floor,
The passing of age that took the blast from our ammunition.
Toy Soldiers
They thrashed the cotton-headed weeds,
Withdrawing strategically, again and again,
As the enemy dispatched new armies of parachuting seeds
To reinforce the battlefield for some latter campaign.
They were beaten, they knew, their numbers too few
To take on an entire ditch bank.
For among the legions arrayed against them so rank,
All manner of hideous imagination grew.
There were hydra-headed grass monsters whose powers surpassed
The efficacy of any common warrior’s blade,
Poisonous spores, man-eating vines, dragons massed -
Multitudes of the most malevolent grade.
But the heroes stood their ground for honor’s sake.
With lattice-strip swords tempered by childhood consecration,
They made the weeping-willow swamp creature’s tentacles break,
And saved the world from utter annihilation.
Puddle Jumping
Days of rain,
Our mothers forbade, in vain,
Our getting wet.
If there was water on the ground,
It was a sure bet
That we would soon be found
Jumping mud puddles.
Mud puddles are not mud at all.
Mud only muddles
The water a bit – the rest is pure rainfall.
And what’s the use of heaven pumping and dumping
All that rain, if nobody’s jumping?
Not to jump seemed a sin,
Not over, but in,
Right smack in the center!
Position of the feet was the key,
Knowing how to enter
With complete authority,
So that most of the water splashed sideways
Instead of filling our shoes.
Sure, our mothers made us pay our dues,
But we still got the best of rainy days.
Motorcycle Ride
Grab your brain bucket. Put your brains inside.
Because you won’t need them much anymore.
Replace all thoughts with a maddening roar.
You’re going on a motorcycle ride.
Now squeeze that crotch rocket between your knees.
Your murder sickle is all set to kill.
You discard better judgment for the thrill.
Lack of discretion is your mad disease.
Hear the frenzied humming of angry bees.
Smell the gasoline nectar. Taste the dust.
Boldly kick the stinger, and feel the thrust.
Take off, aimlessly flying through the trees.
From all your worries, you merrily glide.
With a twist of your wrist, your world is grand.
The whole world is in the palm of your hand.
You’re going on a motorcycle ride.
The Camp
There’s a meadow in Idaho,
Where the pines circle round and meet,
And the grass is trod low
By little city-learned feet.
There, young eyes were wide
In discovery of paradise -
To be outside,
In freedom’s device -
For a few weeks, then done -
As all good things, gone too fast -
But the dream graven clear as sun
Into the lessons of their past,
As wisdom’s consecration,
So that when they are old,
They shall see their final destination
Without being told.
We Had Fishing
We cast our lines in a summer lake,
Not really knowing what was at stake,
Unsure of what we might take,
Our bait as unproven as truth,
Dreaming and aimlessly wishing.
But we had our hooks firmly in youth.
And for a summer, we had fishing.
The Swimming Hole
It rushed out between rocks and moss,
As if it was in a hurry to go someplace,
Maybe eager to get out from under a mountain boss,
And be free from the starting block to run a fair race.
It seemed to know just where it wanted to go,
And went with a fantastic show,
Over gray mountain bones gurgled and hissed,
In a lusty voice sang,
Danced forth from a curtain of mist,
Where ferns, and cress, and myriad emerald spectators
Congregated along the banks for a good view
Of trout gladiators
Flipping in the shadows of overhang,
Against the current’s skew.
It built up enthusiasm as it unified in one force
With sister springs, through a hundred yards of willows pried,
Then roared along a gorge, until it found course
Liberal enough to keep it pacified,
There, meandering and meditating, slow and deep,
Along a tortuous track,
Like a giant serpent might creep,
Until it coiled radically back,
As if it had changed its mind about flowing out to sea.
And there, there was our swimming school,
In the leisure of a creek’s uncertainty,
Where water’s deviation had carved out a pool -
A pool the hue of sky refracted in a drop of dew -
And cold, as near to ice as liquid can be -
Much too cold for swimming, but too
Beautiful not to at least try and see
How long we could stay under
The spell of a serpent’s thumb -
Flying out like lightening, shaking like thunder,
Whooping and leaping to keep from going numb,
Bracing ourselves for another cleansing of our souls.
For to do otherwise, seemed to us a terrible waste -
Not to spend the jewel of all swimming holes -
Ambrosia poured generously, and refusing a taste.
Summer Nights
We spent summer nights in the backyard,
Congregated friends and brothers,
And sisters when we had to,
Waited with shoes on, in similitude of sleep,
Until our mothers were in bed.
Then freedom was ours,
The town ours for the taking,
Exclusive rights to everything within reach,
Though we rarely took more than the thought,
Preferring to dream of safaris in far-off lands,
Of adventures and mystery, of exotic places,
But none as grand as our neighborhood.
The lights of a late-night, fast-food, joint
Beckoned to us from several blocks away,
Like a desert mirage -
Root beer for the taking,
And not a dime between us.
But we discussed our plans,
If ever we got a dime or more.
And on occasion we made raids,
To appease our appetites,
On neighbor’s gardens,
With commando stealth, stole
Fresh peas and raspberries,
Ate by moonlight till stomachache set in,
Drank water from the hose,
And pissed our names on the side of the garage.
With the enthusiasm of Stratford bards,
We performed flashlight melodramas
For each other, with no regard for script,
Raw emotion let loose,
Till lights from the porch silenced us,
Brought the curtain down too soon.
With unrelenting vigor, we scrambled
For cover, for sleeping bags wet with dew,
A lump beneath each, a stone or pine cone,
To perturb ribcages and elbows -
And no use rolling aside,
As there were always more elsewhere.
Mosquitoes hovered at our faces,
But we lay in exquisite repose,
Breathed the scent of grass,
Hoped we could stay forever,
Without sleeping or waking,
In the hush of summer night,
And the ebbing rhythm of a sleeping town
To lullaby the cares of Earth away -
A distant hum of cars on the highway,
A cricket playing in the arbor,
And another beneath the back gate,
The rustle of a tom cat prowling the lilac bush,
From the trees above, the melancholy hoot
Of a mourning dove confused by the street lights,
In lazy intervals a hound baying in the distance,
Answered by the yelping mutt three houses down.
The sky was our final bedtime story -
There above us, the awe of firmament to reckon,
The vast domain of our deepest thoughts
On summer nights.
Bats darted across the moon.
Clouds passed the deep blackness of space.
And we lay in contemplation,
Attempting to divine the meaning of Cassiopeia.
I saw a shooting star once,
And made a wish,
But I can’t remember what it was.
In The Hollow
We met where the road dips down the hollow,
At the edge of old-man Hart’s orchard,
Laying low ’till he went to his reading -
Not that he’d begrudge a few apples for eating,
Even stealing forgiven,
But throwing, a sin, a blatant waste of food -
Food turned to weaponry
More irony than an upright man should abide.
So we’d hide for a while in his tree -
A tree like no other, with a crotch wide
Enough for five boys and five again -
And the orchard beyond – such fine apples,
As much for eating as throwing.
We gleaned only a few from each branch,
So as not to bare any one branch too much.
And such seemed fair, since those that remained
Had more tree to grow on for the effort.
Then with piles at our feet to tide us over
For a while, we declared war, no malice intended,
Nature taking course, mischief orchestrated,
In unison the wind up, and concerted release,
A moment of anticipation,
(Time reduced to its lowest possible component)
For the allegro thud-clank of apples on metal,
Pulverized, blown to pulp and saucy spray
Across hood and on over windscreen,
A shrill shriek of brakes screeching,
And run!
Made for the trees we, up the hill,
Knees weak, legs wobbling, hands shaking,
Cider bubbles percolating in our veins,
Then waited out the passing terror,
Intimate with the grass, momentarily
Considering the error of our ways,
Lungs bursting, hearts leaping, dew seeping
Through the knees of our trousers,
Ready to go at it new, thirsting for more,
Unless enough fury was raised already,
Then such hopes were deferred for the night,
For another evening – another life.
For on occasion we were caught,
Captured outright and brought to justice.
Beaten at our own game, with heads low-bowed,
We confessed our sins, and in truth swore oaths
Of repentance no all-mighty could hold a boy to,
Nor we ourselves, when autumn wind stirred
The trees in the hollow and the error of our youth.
We Built A Castle
I entered a gate to the county jail,
With keys rattling on an iron ring,
Inhaled the metallic air imprisoned there -
Breath of tenants long moved on to bail.
I was just a boy then, but wise enough
To taste the ghosts of stagnant hours wasted
Behind broad, bulking, doors, in gray dimness,
Sun-barred beneath rays of electric bulbs.
The place had outgrown the law that made it -
In need of kinder locks and encumbrances,
The country sought an artist to reshape its fist.
The sheriff said I might suffice with a friend.
Karl was a cripple with a bowlegged hobble,
His bones as brittle as the matches
We used to light our cutting torches,
But he could hold steady enough to melt steel.
And I dragged out bars, and braces, and stalls,
Fulfilling the dreams of so many behind walls,
As odd a team as ever was we were, too innocent
To understand the machine we built,
But we put sweat and soul into it,
And welded new doors and stainless steel toilets
With the pride of any king’s masons,
And lent it new color like God to azaleas.
Our wages we gave little thought of.
Small coins seemed silly in those halls.
Satisfaction was as sweet as strawberries
As we wiped the sweat off our brows.
Karl finished the job but not the year.
The jail is still there, I understand,
His magnum opus and mine -
As significant as any song I’ve ever sung.
Late Harvest
Upon the frosted sward,
I see
The closing tenant of fall’s yard -
A sparrow-laden plum tree
Blustered by twittering
Fruit, last flowers,
On silver-embellished towers,
Low sunlight glittering.
Through summer’s fallen estate,
As instrument of landlord winter, I
A northerly wind instigate
With my passing,
My effect surpassing
All threats of snow,
Like tempest gales blow,
Pluck the final harvest bare,
Scatter blossoms to the air,
Into an apparition of November sky.
The Haunted House Of Mink Creek
Below Mink Creek Steeps there is an old homestead,
Or was – now just a square of foundation stones
That ranging cattle sometimes use as a bed.
There is half of a chimney where the wind moans
On November nights, as it must have back then.
But the old house burned down a long time ago.
The locals don’t seem to know exactly when.
Many claim to remember the story though.
They say they came from back east. But they won’t say
Their name. There seems to be power in the name
That folks feel best left unspoken. Anyway,
They all agree it was from east that they came.
They carved out a cattle ranch on the hillside,
Where the ground was too rocky to take a plow,
Up until the man committed suicide.
Nobody ever knew why or even how,
But he came back to make his widow’s life hell,
Terrorized her until she was unable
To keep from throwing her baby down the well.
They found her hanged above the kitchen table.
The house was bought and sold until none would buy,
As nobody could stay inside a whole night.
Eventually, locals decided to try
And join together, to give the ghosts a fight.
Twelve men stayed there in a show of rancher’s might,
Till the lanterns went out, and they were beaten.
Whatever lived in that house could scratch and bite.
And the ranchers ran, rather than be eaten.
All the men who helped burn the house to the ground
Said they never stopped having terrible dreams
Of the way the wood burned with a hissing sound,
And the stench of burning flesh, and the faint screams.
There is still a hollow where they filled the well,
And a strange weed that creeps on the cellar stairs,
But no recent cases of biting to tell.
Dark birds and bats flutter from their evening lairs.
Fog often shrouds the hillside like a curtain.
Whether restless spirits still abide as hosts
Is not anything one can say for certain.
But boys haunt it from time to time, hunting ghosts.
A December Night
On a December night,
Hushed and blanketed white,
We crunched out across the snow,
Pulling our sleds as fast as we could go,
The heavenly flakes floating around,
Spreading more blanket on the ground,
Our pant legs stiff and creaking,
We, like wandering shepherds, seeking
A sign, something divine,
Beyond a field afar,
A snow-covered hill,
A ride, a thrill.
We might find it again, by and by,
Were we to seek, were we to try.
The Learning Tree
It warsled up from a craggy crotch,
A noteworthy notch
Where one mountain crossed legs with another,
And held the earth
Like a child embraces it’s mother -
A sapling heart in a giant’s girth,
A child of earth and universe,
Babe and sage,
Innocence come to wise age.
And I had come to converse,
To weigh
All a king had to say.
It may have been a pact of friends
Joined together in a force of common ends.
Though, I’d like to believe it was a single entity,
Wise in youth, to bend, so as not to break
Under the test of ax or ice,
And wrought, by triumph over adversity,
Into a monumental device -
The lesson there for me to partake.
But it was not my point
To anoint
As my undertaking
A king’s making.
I had come for wisdom
Beneath an ancient kingdom -
To observe an enduring ruler’s tool,
As he nurtured those he would rule.
Wild raspberries
Seemed to understand the nature of good.
The squirrels in their pantries understood
All of good there is to know.
In a kingdom of fairies,
Truth achieves
It’s point with ease.
I alone waited to understand,
Cupping my ear with my hand,
Listening wishfully on an evening breeze,
To hear dryads whispering in a whiffle of leaves,
And a whippoorwill’s nocturnal woodnote lingering, long and low.
Hay-Hauler
I will remember you, boy man of years ago,
In the last lavender glimmer of summer day,
Walking out of the back field in a golden glow,
Wearing the perfume of sweat and newly-baled hay.
I will recall your thoughts as you looked behind you,
Beyond farm and fences to the wandering sun,
Wondering what would be, years after you were through,
And if time would still remember what you had done.
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