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Candace Andews     Joe Tetro
Tim Bellows
Bob Bradshaw      
Carol Frith    Anna Villegas    Taylor Graham     Dimitris Lyacos

Five poems     by Gil Dellinger

    1.
    Horsemen

         A Final Horseman Comes

         Distilled to bedrock, creaks of Souls
         Trusting incoherent rusting wheels
         And needles thrust to hardening veins
         We walk to mankind's empty peals.

         Already plans are being made to holocaust
         the rest: not just the Jews this time!

         And yet far off, and still far off
         To haunting wind of bagpipes, and ancient piccolos
         A Horseman comes and calls great armies back to flight.
         The horses whinney, stomp all gleaming white.

         He hands the riders silent swords and shields
         And strange there is no clanging in the light.

         Below:  they craft their dark forbidding birds
         And trample each with stone-edged words

         Above: the Tall and Marching Horsemen come
         The Marching Horsemen sing!
         And the only sound they hear below
         Is the quickening of Angel's wings.




     2.
     ETERNAL DANCE

         Job rebuked God!
         And the Lord said to Job!

         "Where were you when I laid the
         foundations of the Earth?"

         "Who shut up the Sea behind doors?
         when it burst forth from the womb,
         when
         I
         made the clouds its garment, and
         wrapped it in thick darkness,
         When
         I
         fixed the limits for it,
         and
         I
         said
         'This far you may come and no farther!
         This is where your proud waves halt?'"


         And so I watch this dance,
         A massive gorge filled with a Universe of sea;
         Cascading minerals and mackeral,
         Otters clacking clams, and careening plankton,
         hidden in dark green caves

         And  I think of Job,
         His mighty house, so changed by inexplicable pain
         And how his eternal waltz with God
         Let's me soar like gleaming osprey
         High above the Sea



   3.   
   Mare's in the Hedge Row

         Mare's in the hedge row
         Colin's on the bound

         Branches smashed
         Thorn slash
         And gate's on the ground.

         Marge's patch is trampled
         And Edna's laundry's down


         Whinney, bay and bellow
         Panic all around

         Mare's in the hedge row
         Colin's temper's wound!



  4.
  Thanksgiving

         Roosters up
         I'm out

         An Ice bright morning stinging gold
         So cold Thanksgiving

         The first hard sigh of winter dirge

         While walnut oak and amber speak
         Against a deep steel sky
         And leaves fall fast like
         Late August stars

         Clattering in thunderous applause
         As scarlet careens like heavy rain
         From Liquid Amber clouds

         And the smell;
         All Fall pefuming and sublime

         And summer tumbles fast away,
         Blown by the wind,
         Out of the orchard

   


   5.
   Tintern Abbey
       
         Blossomed out in one sweet savory week
         All Wales pressed about in perfect pearly skies
         with staunch pink faces underneath
         Ruddish; bluish from Atlantic winds

         There,  longing for the sun
         Those could have been the faces of the monks

         And I:  To paint that light
         Now spreading up some graceful emerald curve
         To pinnacle at an ancient fortress
         Now a home to serve
         Some burly sheep or thick-necked bristly horses

         Eating sweetness beyond our grasp

         And Longing for the Son
         The monks like shadows passed

         The place where once they stood; a song
         Even them,  brightly singing
         Deep and slow in rapture winging
         Carefully up and down the rhythmic hills
         Like the ancient clanging of a bell, behind the ox
         or the swelling of majestic earth, behind the creaking plough

         They may have been the Son's own sun
         These monks in shadows now.









UPON HEARING MY DAUGHTER TALK OF DYING   by Gilbert Schedler

‘Death, my little sister,’
he said and held out his arms
to small birds and squirrels.
The old man, a librarian
with a wispy white beard,
paused at the gate and said
‘we come from mystery and
we go into mystery’ as he
disappeared into the green hills
to drink herbal tea
and watch water flow
effortlessly
toward ‘the scrotum tightening
sea.’

I think of death now
seldom, not like those dark
days when I had options
and each decision meant an end
to romantic dreams
left behind.  Now there is
a soft easing, a quiet walk
through sleepy streets
guarded by anxious dogs.

They talk of the dying of the light,
of old tin cans at the edge
of the garden.  I watch the sun
pick up the leaves with light
at the eastern window,
the glare at noon, and the quiet
descent as shades of pink,
of deep green and shadow
climb the redwood, the elm
and squeeze the last tube
of color from the fading canvas
of day.

I have been to the city
but now more often I turn
toward the herons hiding
in the tall branches
above the Calaveras,
the ducks walking a line
along the rice ponds
outside Ubud, night birds
circling the ghats on the Ganges.

I smile at the old dreamer, the voyager,
who wondered whether he was
a butterfly, or whether he had to call
again to his friends and sail out
between the legs of Hercules
and discover once again the island
where little sisters, where daughters
gather in the dusk and dance
while he sits in the circle
and is blessed by the stars,
by the night.



Two Poems by Dimitris Lyacos  
http://www.lyacos.net/

VIII

Final concept harbour which has
broken there where it crumpled our faces
there where ikons soaking and dissolving
scoured the rusty beds
with haven sleep and holy candle fading
keeling over amid the wailings
the friendly hug which turned to stone for ever
in a vein where death drips
dispirited nods and flesh-consuming intercourse
and embraces on the slighted
shape of the saint who is baptised in fever
and empties our bodies' skins
and discharges black ruins of the tissues
entrails
the fir tree's primary jewellery then
as we were nestling below the turf
of the dream noiselessly
in the root of the sickness which was opening
a road and a door leaning tilting into the darkness, light
sure prophesies, whirlpools drowning the promontories
and the place was becoming wrinkled without pathways
and we were casting anchor in our innards
and chains were harvesting the senses
and the affections are shattering

and the forefathers used to navigate in the expanse of madness
close-bound bundles being pressed together into
the pattern of condemnation indescribable
shadows and rent apart
and the mercy which was granted them of asphyxiation
while the pulley-wheel of memories spins red-hot
the un-nailing of my boyhood years
and the funerary gifts which uncover the frenzy
crumb from the stars
coffins under the rain
forests inclining into pubic hair
lonely orgasms crippled lovers
and the unique desolation of their lustful mouths

 

 

X

Because you can no longer stay
because your vision allows the idols to writhe
until the lake congeals, until your hand ceases
to poke among the gizzards and the burning coals
seeking a useless axe
and let the sea scratch the dried blood;
Dismissal.
Because you are looking for the mountain and the nails beneath the stars
black crosses leaning towards the triumph
and once more you crawl and
scramble on the earth's wounds
spitting sulphur which cauterizes your limbs
panting as once upon the whores,
watering the lustful sandbanks
and the croaking of the birds of prey accompanies
the defilement; ecstatic on the mountain.
And the moist stings of the scorpions
show the way
and the mind a map dipped in wine
and the soul within its muzzle
suckling
the further horizon of pain.




  WE’RE ALL SUNDOWNERS
by Joe Tetro

I see nothing in the window
but panes of glass illegible as ice,
and silence enters me
like a brother I’ve never seen--
as if glass could freeze
or preserve a view
and allow it to enter my eyes.
forever…

The rose branches scratch
the window screen.  On the ash
tree by the septic tank 
a red shafted flicker
pecks for insects,
and out of the profound
silence, another silence
grows even deeper within me,
until it merges with the evening’s
cool breeze silently stirring the branches
of the trees; and, way off 
in the west, a fast setting sun
flattening itself against the hilltops,
its pink and burgundy blood
bleeding into the white clouds
the way wounded love
stains the whiteness
of a love once avowed .

The ragged hills of clay,
their fractured water-forged skulls
worn smooth as the teeth
of lantern-jawed old horses,
push their lips up around the
dissolving sun,
and  I sit in the window
hearing the silence echoing
within me, my organs
existing by faith alone, silent
as a bevy of fighter pilots
watching a lone flier return
from a raid with eyes
physically fixed in his face
but spiritually still missing
lost in the sea  of deaths
dark dilemma, like things
swallowed, but no longer 
thinkable.

And listening
to the silent branches
moving with the breeze,
and feeling the darkness
touching, and brushing softly
up against the house, I realize
how every waking moment
of  life is caught
between the silence
of a beating heart
and the muffled screams
of body heat returning to dust.

I see darkness
merging with shadows,
gathering closer around
the window,  finally swallowing
the granary, the tractor
shed,  horse barn, and
the chicken house.

Tomorrow I’ll arise
With everything still wrapped
In darkness, and
with my twenty gauge
walk a cross a field
of dry, already picked corn stalks,
toward the gulch--carved
in the valley by flood waters
discharged by the hills
before Cain slew Able; and
there I’ll hide
behind tumble weeds
waiting for predawn
feeding flights of geese.

And I’ll  hear my grandma telling
about the times of drought, when
grasshoppers came in clouds
and blotted out the sun, and chickens
went to roost at noon. And when
the sun came out again,
just minutes later, the branches
of the giant elms
had been stripped clean
of all their leaves.

Every moment is precious
if  you think about it the dance
in the dust
between light and darkness;
between hunger and
bounty; between eating
and being eaten; the sudden turning
of energy to heat and heat
back into dust--the dilemma seen
in the eyes, the silence
within—never more
than a breath away.

In the morning wearing brown
I will hide behind weeds
Death has turned brown,
another dance
in the dust--not hunger
for meat, but for the death
of a brother I’ve never seen
returned to silence, and
into the gift wrapping
of white tissue paper clouds
that conceal the light blue gift
of sky again the bleeding—
the inner terrain
of myself I’ve never seen--
a perspective as old
as the fractured skulls
of the hills over whose
evening horizon
each of us someday,
in his-or-her turn,
will follow the sun.
     


 

!st Place Sacramento Poetry Center Poetry Contest '01
Mother On Wednesday
by Carol Frith

Her voice is as round as a vowel.
It is really you? she asks. It's
been so long.

I was here yesterday. She uses linkage
like a mask now.

Long, she repeats, her voice diminishing
into the final consonants.

She pauses, listens to the blank acoustics
of the room.

Goodbye, she says suddenly. I am going
to say goodbye. Her words are outside
of the minutes between us.

She flutters her hands, plucking pieces of
my visit out of the air.

Your green shirt is almost like a thing I've
lost the name for, she says.

I wait through the dissolving sound of
her voice, listen to the yellow morning
drone outside her window.

I am not awake, she tells me, in this room.
Time dreams by us both.

In the filtered sun, her skin glows pale
as Leopardi's fruit preserved in wax.
There is no word for the pressure
of this light.

2nd Place Student Category
1997 San Joaquin County Arts Council Poetry Competition
The Dance Of The Herons
by Lawrence E. Long

Through folds of grass that
Gather 'round the circle of rock,
With the sky, like tar and stars
Twisting round the autumn moon,
comes the dancing Heron flock.

Dripping down from tops of clouds
Skimming the current of the stream,
Once the soft and soothing grass
That bends beneath their bounding feet
As they dance beneath the nightly beam.

The forest floor is hidden now
By blankets of leaves, brown and red.
Upon low bursts of wind they rise
And spiral into waiting night,
To fall, and find and make their bed.

The Herons acend and back again
On flowers all of a hue the same,
Throwing color all around,
Circling, dancing all as one.
They sing to persuade ancestral flame.

The fire rises from the Earth
Of silver, red and midnight blue.
Slowing vivid, high and wide,
Whipping in the cold night wind,
Bringing both the old and new.

The Herons dance on shades of grass
Around the soaring mystic fire
He is the spirit of the dance.
Wings flutter, keeping time
To music played on magic lyre.

Atop the highest mountain crag
Stands the oldest Heron, He
whose eyes are circled red and gold
Will bring forth the few, those chosen few,
For whom they hold ceremony.

The elder leaps above his seat
And glides through clouds to meet the rest
He stands amidst the feathered flock
And looking on his kin, allows
The blaze to shine upon best.

With raised wings and sorcery
He brings the flame up to it's peak
With glory unmatched and cause unknown,
Seven flames flail from the top
To seven Herons at the beak.

With the chosen brought before their king
They bow their heads with honor proud
From here they know their destiny
As leaders of this magic flock
They dance along on air and ground.

Then silence falls and covers all
Who dance in flowers bright and wild
As the elder lifts his head on high
And brings to him on with call of wing
Another, a young Heron child.

The flock stands still and breezes cease
Blowing through brush and tree and reed
All All is quiet until until the elder walks
Up to the staring child. He points
And proclaims the words, "And he shall lead,"

The child turns and looks at him
With music starting from the lyre
The elder then flies up again,
Just above the dancer's heads,
And sets himself within the fire.

Flames engulf and burn his life,
And all around let piercing cries fly
To join the spirit of their lost King
And from the thickened shroud of trees
Surrounding , arise the celestial fireflies.

To carry the hallowed spirit forth
To the blessed place of dreams and lore.
His essence bursts and scatters all
Throughout the glow of the red dusk sky
To shine as stars for evermore.

The flames within them, then vanish.
The child orders their cries to one,
Then leads them through the dewy grass,
And back again from whence they came
As if they never were, they're gone.

The swirling leaves fall down again
And settle softly near and far
The fireflies vanish amid the sky,
To take their native righteous seat
And give way unto the morning star.

The light brings day to all asleep,
And shining gold on grass and rock,
Gives life to Day. And all is silent
In the wonderful gathering place
Where danced the sacred Heron flock.
 
 

I Come to this Beach
by John Cardoza

I come to this beach out of habit mostly.
I was young here once; learned to chase the waves
in games of tag, built castles, found
bits of jade and opal and ivory.

Or so they seem as they lay glistening
at the tidal edge tempting me, testing me.
I gathered them daring the waves,
laughing at salt spray that tasted of tears.

Waves descended on themselves
stretching closer ever closer;
slowing finally, fading finally
while a foghorn sounded.

I thought to write my initials in the sand.
I dug deep letters with my heels,
traced my name again and again
carving myself into that blank slate.

The sand marked my presence but a little
before the tide returned hushed and quiet,
leaving only a piece of shell, a bit of stone
with luster dying in the drying sun.

I tossed them through the waves,
watched them vanish, lost them forever.
I return to find them again,
or me, somewhere on the shore.

Riding The Morgan Horse
by Douglas M. Tedards

Pal was the Morgan horse
I rode when I was growing up.
Even after years in the saddle
he could throw me in a second--
a scrap of white paper,
a covey of quail,
or a startled rabbit
and I'd be in the air,
then on the ground...
parts of me and his tack
scattered in the field
or along some country road.

 Soft landing or not
I'd climb back up
but knew in time
I'd be thrown again...
This equine whirlwind
could turn me into a horseless rider
in a flash of wings
from a flushed covey
or wind-rippled sheets
from a laundry line.
The slightest movement
always catching his eye
much quicker than mine,
and I seemed to finish the ride
purely at his own pleasure.

 I learned never to take him for granted,
and until the day
he was too old for the saddle
I remained his apprentice rider.

 It is oddly the same
for me now, writing these words--
a poem thrown together
for an afternoon jaunt
then written over and over, inexhaustibly,
until it turns on a dime
heading for home.

 Such writing rarely comes easily,
words tossed into the air
or left stranded on the page,
watching it all come together
in a flash of images
formed purely for their own pleasure.

 As a young horseman
and now a writer of poems,
until the day I am too old for words,
I will remember what I learned
from Pal and his knack for throwing me
out of his saddle at the slightest provocation:
hold on tight, prepare for the unexpected,
and enjoy the ride.

Fog
by  Bob Bradshaw

   Always there has been fog
   along the coasts, hugging
   the coastlines like stockings
   embracing Greta Garbo's
   legs.
  Strangers dissolve
  into the fog. North America
  disappears.
  But the night air is like the darkened
  room of a seance, where
  contact beckons.  Moonlight
  shimmers in the fog,
  and you think of the light from projectors
  in old movie theatres.
  When
  exhausted, and ready to believe
  that all is as common and as
  predictable as summer heat in the Delta,
  there is fog.
  Maybe that's why lovers
  are compelled to seek the privacy
  of fog.
  Think of North Beach and its jazz,
  with signatures as distinct
  as a fog horn's, flaring
  from basement night
  clubs.
  Where you know no one maybe
  but the lover
  who leans against your shoulder.
  Where at 3 a.m.
  you walk up the steps
  from a night club,
  clutching each other,
  the fog like a blind chaperone
  as you and your lover
  steer towards the harbor
  of a darkened
  apt.
 

RETURNING LATE
by   Tim Bellows
         "Different times and different spaces
          are combined in a here and now that
          is everywhere at once"
                                     Octavio Paz

Harvest workers on the bright dust road. One
straggles and drags the baskets, looks
at the moon when the moon is nothing
but a glance coming back - blue clouds,
glass-pale glaciers, sun-rays from another day.
Thoughts come in walking: rest

coming soon - feet up on a chair
by the kitchen counter; snap beans,
peppers; slice of cheese from the 7-11;
wife and scurrying kids in hiding games,
foolish smiles bloom and fade, seem to be
memories already as he feels the house

tipping into sleep ñ nothing but screens, wood,
innocence of three rooms, two of them
with only mats and a magazine on the floor;
the boards barefoot-smooth so dreams
can ghost in,  dark and light.
Harvest workers on the bright dust road.
        ~ Turlock, California, í98.
(5-4-01)

Starchild
by Candace Andrews

   This
I have paid with my loneliness
for this full desire
But like a deer addicted to salt or
the Pacific straining toward the western shore,
I know this too was inevitable,
preordained a thousand,  even a million years ago
No less a miracle than clockwork or
the broad blue washes of starlight.

A scientist once said,
"Hazard is our master; it's the secret
game between the molecules."
But a greater scientist said,
"Nothing happens at random."

If this is random; happenstance,
then remember,
so too is this Earth
the chips of fire in the midnight sky
the dark-haired child who
waits
silent & listening.



  Love Song for My Falconer   by Anna Villegas

            Unwounded,
            A falcon’s pulse
            Runs not fast but deep
            To stoop on prey
            Or leave the grounded falconer.

            Maimed, a falcon breathes
            Through shattered bone.
            Hollowed by nature or love
            For speed in flight,
            A wing bone bellows
            And keeps alive
            The broken bird
            Who lives on air
            In stead of height.

            Goshawk, kestrel, merlin:
            Rapt, you flew them all
            Before me, your red-tail.
            One by one
            They were let go
            By your good will
            Or left the cabin in the glade
            Your future flight betrayed.

            Your woodsman’s hands
            Bound the fragile fight
            Of my crippled wing
            Which would too early
            Find my sky.
   I took your every gift:
   The pigeons you mourned and killed
   And lay in pieces
   Inside my timbered mews.
   The hands you fit
   Around my breast.
   The stillness you manned,
   Mistaking love for fear.

   My dark eyes followed you,
   Learning you
   By a heart that fluttered
   In place of wings.

   Withdraw my hood.
   Strike my jesses.
   Unglove your hand.
   Handle me with fingers
   Thick and warm.

   Break my bones:
   I breathe
   And fly
   And bind myself.

   Break my bones.
   I breathe.


 
  Seeing Fox   by Taylor Graham              A Thousand Miles from Here

appears in her book Next Exit
published by Cedar Hill Publications

Among wood and dry stone, branches
like stiff snakes' tongues, a web
of spider, forest walls in waves,

the focus is one live eye. Fox.
An instant, gone. Small birds
come back, complaining to the safe

shadows, the unstenched water.
No more joy of ruddy fur under a fall
of sun, no sizzle-samba

of whiskers, changing woodland
quiet into a dangerous listening.
In spite of rumor, Fox is gone

to the lethal edge of asphalt,
hugging berms and cover like an eye
behind the lashes of wild trees.
 

A Thousand Miles from Here
by Taylor Graham
appears in her book Next Exit
published by Cedar Hill Publications

My favorite shot: three Indian women,
beadwork between their knees
in the plaza shade, and you ---
a tourquoise necklace in the nest 
of your palm --- haggling its price.
One sparrow on a rough wood joist
of the arts museum, and the red
cathedral sidelit from the east.
That's just as I remember.

And yet, the film removed
from its black box, and passed
through an intricate chemistry
or spirit-screen, and printed
in cool March colors ---

I find that you're not 
there. A turquoise necklace drifts
in air. One old Indian's caught
half-risen on stiff knees.
The sparrow sings mid-twitter.
Some quirk of memory and time
or light displacing fact
has x'ed you from the scene
as surely as if you never smiled
against my lens.















                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         
















Catherine Webster                       
                                                    "What I relate to in these poems
                                                    is the huge presence of the natural
                                                    world and the mind struggling in,
                                                    almost like that bluebird of hers
                                                    shimmying through the door into
                                                    its nesting box. Like that bird, she
                                                    is relentless in her homing."
                                                           Gerald Stern   on the poetry of
                                                                             Thicket Daybreak

Self Portrait As A Slight Wobble
                                                                                 Floating Flowers
An Offering
                   
Late August of a drought year, the irrigation                     
water rationed, praise stressed almond trees; praise        
fat calves weaned off clover, and the market up                
fourteen cents; praise burnt cheat grass and hollow                                                                              
oat hills, yet enough dry pasture to carry 207                                
calvey cows; with the pond a quarter full, celebrate           
11 night bitterns roosting in the willows; sing                      
hallelujahs for the kindness of figs, lusty                                   
fruit when split trembling with rhythm; praise                                
breezes that keep windmills turning; windmills; praise                                                   
black baldies for their high-bred vigor, praise frogs
mosquito fish, algae, and snails; for bee-loud
tarweed and tart honey come December, praise; praise
Bach's "Jesus, Joy of Man's Desiring"; for drowsy
blowflies and nightblooming jasmine, praise, praise
the mockingbird, the hoot owls, whichever you listen to
as we lean back on the plank porch, touching.






 




 
  



 

Self-Portrait as a Slight Wobble in the Motion of Stars
                                                         (L.A. Times, 1/18/96)
Starry vapor tugging at my apple orchard,
planet on her 115-day elliptical course around 70 Virginis unnamed,

my gaze is more potent for her watery chemistry.

As if her near-green sphere
            freed up molecules of apples in the Virgo
            Constellation.

and unabashedly her wet surface

        colors my breasts--

        now her unclimbed brilliance
        sustains stems. Leaf, leaf, with chlorophyll greens

outside my kitchen door, As if astir

        everywhere,
        she is a living thing at my back yard gate.

        All my tongue and lip gesture

speckled. Without being mist, is that motion in her?

        Ambrosial? I lick my lips...

Now, her reality takes seed and core.
A stack of open crates, this season's Fujis, Romes.

        That intimate light outside my screen door,

        my most human parts seeking her, freah turning,
        pressing against the thatch of the eaves--

        who has found the door to my back porch open,

        I cross the the porch to deal with her like produce...
 
 

Floating Flowers

Shift the weedy edge, midsummerwhip, rushwork strips the reedy bunting's nest

Sunlight passing through the snipe-egg, little grebe egg laid in mud, shy rail
        swelling and spreading the watersides,

freakup the wind's energy, fearsome botany, June-liking-June, toss it around.

An orange-irised dorsal fin leaps for the hatched darter-nymph.

Kingfishers diving, jabs the milt-hot redd-head and body shell-yoked rising,
rush flowerheads into weediness, into the sdgeweedsstalk rose pinkfact.

Ripple the spread male flower's cloud of pollen, fluffy wave-seed,
head of the blizzard,
slit open the slow floating place....
 

                                Open the great reed mace, the brown cigar-red stem,

branching out, tipped, spiky, churns, spins air and drops, tourbillion...the spawned

        backfeeding on dizzy eggs, bent, wavering passing beneath her firm feet,

        the solitary stalker-beak
        stabs into the stream bank...
 

                                Open, the burrow the trickle climbs (spearing-bed), opening out,

its own seed, burdened, laid in blue

        beaten into the slippery old reeds,

        the tilted stillness stabbed-tossed hole-comes headfirst up.




The French Generals     by Robert Bly
from THE NIGHT ABRAHAM CALLED TO THE STARS ,
HarperCollins,2001, with permission of Robert Bl y         also see "The Approaching War"

Whenever Jesus appears at the murky well,
I am there with my five hundred husbands.
It takes Jesus all day to mention their names.

The growing soul longs for mastery, but
The small men inside pull it into misery.
It is the nature of shame to have many children.

Earth's name is "Abundance of Desires." The serpent
Sends out his split tongue and waves it
In the air scented with so many dark Napoleons.

A general ends his life in a small cottage
With damp sheets and useless French franc notes;
He keeps his plans of attack under the mattress.

I have said to the serpent: "This is your house."
I bring in newspapers to make his nest cozy.
It's the nature of wanting to have many wives.

Sturdy rafters in lifejackets are pulled down
Till their toes touch the bottom of the Rogue River.
Wherever there is water there is someone drowning.
















Transubstantiation                                                             
by William Barr

Last night under the levee oak my
daughter heard a low flute in a
hidden cave, mice run on a barn

ledge, the squeak of Gypsy wagons,
unhurried, almost out of range. She
looked over a fence: compact as

Haiku, Japanese Haniwa stood mute
in a backyard garden, pots of
Mexican clay flicked with the first

light of an Aztec dusk. She smelled
kerosene near a shadow play on
Chinese tomb warriors. She heard,

she saw the essence of California
craft, a jeweled belt, a sort of cein-
ture for Western patios? Or did

she see an accidental litter
behind wooden fences with mid-
section sags, fruitless mulberry

tangled in corners overgrown with
untrimmed pyracantha, discarded
tea bags? Tonight my daughter will

walk the levee again. Before dawn
she will see a woman's foot stop
a potter's wheel. The woman's

hands will be wetted by a hose
and her feet will feel the chill
droppings of moist paste on the

cement below the wheel. The
woman will open a kiln. The fire
in the opened kiln will reflect a

red glare on a Comanche face. Out
of the fire the woman will pull a
clay Kuan Yin. The Kuan Yin will

cool slowly into the morning, its
final shape a basted meld of the
shards of a hundred lungfish,

their grey mud crypts blown the
night before against her redwood
fence by a dark ocean wind.





 



















"Poetry is everything,"  he says, "I don't  like everything, just what's beautiful, elegant... courageous."                  --- David Humphreys 6/2003