summer_jackel

Little Rogue, tending the ducks---
"What," she says, "you seem surprised.
You've known me for eleven years.
Did you think I was just cute?"

"So, what was today's poem about?" she asked me last night,
a little wistfully.
"It wasn't much. Just a couple of lines about
the wildflowers we saw in the forest yesterday."
"Oh," she said. "I thought you were going to write about fish guts."
And she was right.

So

Fish
Beautiful fish
word the ocean whispered
tiny sigh the dark wet ocean
spoke in broad silver shoals,
you one pure note in that
rich symphony;
little flake of silver
whose eyes have not quite dulled
whose viscera lie in my hand
whose flesh is delicious:
Thank you.

My old dog
rests near me, by the latticed gate.
She raises her fine-muzzled, frosted head
long enough to flash dark eyes and, satisfied,
replace her head upon the little paws and close her eyes.
Light has filtered through the gate to gently gild her mane;
Falling plum blossoms have adorned her.

Why did I go out tonight?

To walk into the deepening sky
past a skin of golden water thrown across black grass,
to see a thin new sliver of moon
hung cradled in the oak’s old twisty limbs.
They have seen so many seasons.

For two ducks splashing across the molten glass
before a dimming treeline quieted them;
for frogsong louder than cities.

Little Rogue of Earthsea was
a Shetland Sheepdog puppy who I raised
within my pack of wolf-blooded huskies.
At play, the three were fierce, all flashing teeth
and rocketing high-speed chases,
followed by jubilant full-strength collisions
and more teeth.
The little sheltie would rocket behind them,
fierce with passion,
fully engaged.
The wolves, benevolent
and fond of her, ignored her completely.
But it was enough.

Her mask came grizzled
when she regrew her winter coat this year,
though it shone as deep and rich
a sable as it ever did, and her eye
flashed brightly when I saw her
curled together on her pillow
with the sighthound puppy, conspiring:
ah, she says, I can see
from the shape of you, your eye and how you run
how you run and bite, that you are
of the killing kind, that you are
of the bright-eyed white-toothed ones who
run endlessly and bury your sharp teeth
playfully in your sister's mane
or in red power when you taste the prey.
I have no patience for these gentle sheepdogs.
Let me show you, then, about the wolves
and how we ran together, through the waves
and over mountains
when all the world was new.

Oh, the problem was that there was a poem I hadn't written. I see. Perhaps now I shall be able to get some sleep.

Not sure about the title. Or the poem; I'll decide if I like it later.

EDIT: fixed some stuff, changed the title.




Textures
(love in August)
8.13.11

It’s late and I am
edgy, joyful from a night of dance
and wearied down with grieving.

Trying to remember
that the night is warm
that outside, tall redwoods curve upward to meet
their gentle and twinkling indigo sky;

and

bushing laundry from my travel-bag I
am stilled to breathe the faintest
scent of her home on the soft fabric
of my old dressing gown.
For all at once,
swirling round my heart like rainwater:
all the textures of her,
her lightness in my arms.

Two Encounters

I. Woodpeckers Fledging

The acorn woodpeckers on my street
have brought one chick to fledging---
Steller’s jays took its sibling last month.
Now the child, lovely and awkward
in velvet, unmarred plumage
sits atop a telephone pole and bawls
as its parents alternately feed and peck it,
their exasperation palpable.

They take turns gliding elegantly
from pole to tree, with all the considerable
grace, precision and show of a woodpecker’s ability.
As if to say, you can do this. Feel those wings?
Clearly, you have used them at least once.
You have begun: your leaps and flight may
also end once only.
You must learn quickly how to live, my love
and yes, the world is larger than you thought.




II. Slug Sex

I’ve been looking for years,
and on this morning early in July, at last I witnessed
the courtship of banana slugs.

I noticed the length first; they were
stretched and languid in tanoak litter,
of equal size. The unmarked yellow followed
closely, brushing its spotted partner’s tail
with its radula, careful, in slowness.
I want to say “his,” thereby revealing
my own gender bias
which will not help me understand the slugs.
One may be de facto female,
but only if he did this once before,
and didn’t come out the better of it.

A long, deliberate intimacy;
each gives and receives,
though not without pain
or threat of loss.
This we have in common with the slugs, perhaps;
more likely I am reaching,
in a vain attempt to empathize with an alien act,
a perspective I cannot share,
a beauty that is not mammalian.

This much I know:
they will twine together in tanoak duff,
moist earth and slime, and winter’s rains
will call the new ones forth to tend their forest.
It will take hours; I have not the patience for the act
and am afraid to disturb them.
I admire for a voyeur’s moment and walk on,
grateful to have witnessed mystery.


***

III. Third encounter, several hours later

This was a wonderful, relaxing morning until
my brother dragged out of bed;
last night’s party ended in a fight, and
he looks like five big guys beat out the stuffing,
which is exactly what happened.

I think I know how those woodpeckers must feel.

I showered, just now, with two African parrots.
The grey one makes his "running water" sound;
it means something like "a little to the left" or
"stop hogging the spray, you."
The little greenish one is quietly blissful.
I am glad that there are no
pinfeathers on my face, it must be unpleasant
but warm water is nice for all of us.

slipping sideways flashing silver
and then the other direction, for an instant
sunblind discs flashing into
that swish of narrow blade
they are from the other direction
in the water.

It's a very, very silly work in progress. I don't know that it will ever be finished, but the idea is something that's been floating around in my head for long enough that I guess it probably isn't going to go away if I politely ignore it. Also, it's April and I woke up with a verse in my head; given that I'm not otherwise going to want to commit poetry today, it would be silly of me to turn it down.

Also, if I ever really finish this, it will be illustrated, as well as several more verses than this.


Crocodile Ball

On a clear, warm night in a polished hall
on the shore of Deep Lake is the crocodile ball.

By the light of the moon they slip lithe to the shore;
They swish through the grass and slide onto the floor.

With their sharp teeth so polished and gems on their scales
with rings on their claws and garlanded tails,

Caimains and gharials and gators and crocs
step lightly to waltz and the trot of the fox