Giving Thanks: A Eulogy for Lola (Grandma)

Mid-autumn I rise to the sound of wind in the maples. From what I believe to be my secure shelter, I look out the window to see that the leaves have changed. From flames of deep orange to faded marigold, sunlit foliage fills my room with a glow that protects me from the cold open sky.

But even in glory, our old companions fall.  Some beauty returns to the earth that has provided us with every need, like a selfless mother.  And as we endure the daily hustle and bustle, perpetually acting, making plans, making mistakes, and making amends; we occasionally, sometimes unexpectedly, bear witness to this cycle of change--the vibrance of a luminous sunset to the subtlety of dusk to dark. The tree becomes barren, exposed for us to see, yet restful and at peace with the dramas of the world. And even though our tree has lost a part of itself, in time and with patience, the leaves of the past nourish its roots and make space for new eager buds, preparing for splendor.

We are the tree that remains, so let us be watchful over this beautiful family and the bounty of life that sustains us.  As the winter comes quietly upon us, we can pray or we can meditate. We can regretfully think on all the things we did or did not say or do.  But the best thing we can do in the absence of Lola is to contribute to life on her behalf.  When we devote ourselves to selfless kindness, forgiveness, and compassion, her spirit lives freely among us.

When a Person Becomes a Place

Everyone must have a pocket this deep
Sewn tightly in each corner
Let me know this one by heart
Incise surrender
No crime so sparse

I paint my grandfather
To remember a pinhole
In his forehead

Profound ovals
Upheld by his jaw
I never knew him without wrinkles
Nor the name of his Spanish piano songs

I'll name one Paradiso
Unlike infernos
Drawn in the woodstove during blackouts
Caves in mind

Never full
Shells concave his face
Where barnacles and cancer
Evolve for his fingers landing the keys
Blank and sharp

Single is Nothing

We pause to see radical change
Endorse it every town we tinsel
A branch where math is sacred

Single is nothing
We hang on

Our ligaments
Wish we thought better
Organic chemistry, quantum physics, astrophysics and neuroscience
Permacultural meditation, galactic alignment
Salmon eggs and skeletons mantra
Hawks, bats, hummingbirds, and manta rays

Fictitious realms and societies
Unseen abstractions laughing

Cryptic illustration of all things combined
A whole body together

Subconscious interaction
Clairvoyance and intuition
Star power and amethyst rocks
Heart tremors

Slipping vessels aboard the solution--saline circulation
What does the hand mean, who do I signify?

A cellular chapel, a chapter unwritten
And what do you feel about death?

And how can you inhale this life without exhaling
How could we think without salt and light

Without clear and dark voyages and voyeurism
A radiant teaching embodied and broadcast

From an island where the sunflowers turn
To the child of the sun

Play peek-a-boo like cats and tomatoes
The nightshade purples and resonates from paragliders

Diaphragmatic flight surrenders to wind and creation--
an echo so shallow and hollow--

Unaware of this frequency of sails and photons
We pause on the road to see a mesa and a man-made lake
All insects prehistoric
and where words don't work

Crazy Glue

We were surrounded by crazy glue

Surrounded by tools

We had the antidote for snake venom

and spilled all that too

My brother dangled from a rosary

fell far from a bead

The break echoed for decades

Slipped the rosary into grandma’s pillowcase

She never prayed again

He once was a manta ray

Once was a kite

He laid the sticks crosswise
Jumping in kid shoes

I snapped them apart

I can’t find them in the wilderness

Can’t squeeze their stubborn honey

That sleeps in crevices

Wings folded

The colored corollas too timid to help

What if they knew
he lives in a rock

the size of two palms

painted red butterfly?

What if they knew 

it could speak?

I leave them all spinning

I look for rainbuckets

I look for letter magnets

I look for windows taller than me

I was hypothetical then

Not a real dream

I was a shard of lamp glass

He broke for me

I bottled his swings

I smothered his voices

I asked him to shine

We were surrounded 

Surrounded by fools

We made dandelion sun tea

and spilled all that too

What am I?

I am a robber, a victim, a thief—I am kind remorseful, unburdened, relieved. I am thick as black and clear as forgotten sleep. I am stung. I am still here, still where I was, still looking to be somewhere else. I am fieldless, mountainless, lakeless, in love.  I tremble. I am a jackhammer. I am exhaust. I am raw, unrefined, unfiltered, unholy and I am whole.  I am restless. I am a rooftop—imperfect and boiled softer by the sun.  I am earth heat. I am basalt. I am volcanic. I am ash. I am fertile, sandy loam. I am part acid, part salt, part quiet, part lion. I am broke and I am awake. I am green, I am chartreuse.  I am full of truth. I am unlawful, self-righteous. I am aloof.  I am unencumbered, outnumbered and I am childless. I am full of lies. I am thunder. I am panther. I move swiftly in the dark. I am dark. I am speech. I am description. I am hollow, fluffy, silk and smoke-free. I am away. I am remembered. I am thought—a time of day. I am erupting. I am ruthful. I am a pear tree bearing plums. I am a fountain, a trickle, a bone, a white key, a black key, a coin. I am a canoe, a lighthouse, a totem. I am crystalline. I am a reflection. I am a knapsack, a puddle, an emblem, a bang.  I am a pair, a leaflet, a couplet, a rendering. I am a stair, a pedestal, a pendulum, a portal. I am out. I am land. I am a cell. I am a sail, an insignia, an island, a tide. I am voluntary, inevitable, indiscriminate, enveloped, unchained. 

When I See Felix in Exile I Know

There will always be outer space
and Negative Capability
In which I saw the depth of time and no time and the spaces
within a spilled espresso pot
and the contagious void that it creates
on white celluloid
That paper could pretend to be
a procession of encumbered dancers and laborers
of dark limbs
of any stature and without nations
A superimposition of white ants
traverse a single planet's path
across the liquid composition
whose common name is god
whose scientific
name has yet to be deduced
One could wield political power by symbols
cut and paste to fashion a custom flag
Indicating
There's less difference
between reading Russian and reorganizing a rubik's cube
than there is variation between the Brothers Karamazov
and amongst the constitution
of one cube to another at any point
in metamorphosis
No limitations to the use of rocket ships
Some enjoy them as large drinking vessels
while others prefer them for entertaining
interplanetary cousins
all aspiring to acquire the speech patterns of Carl Sagan
and Carl Jung
It takes little effort

but is of great consequence
to be a man with several folds

about his face and sculptings
to be a pearl in anything

other than an oyster
to leave everything broken

Trees are livestock - traduccion

a river arrives

 behind the barbed wire & each window

her loins root red in deep clay

 hillsides burst 

 bags of all-purpose flour

and the yellowing day finally collapses

while the ceiling asks & the bed answers

"you will never get there"

the cows are slow

and below the shadows of their hats

brims a diversion

lifting one palm

as if to say, "you're welcome"

we always pass 

leaving the beaches, 

the clouded space, the unnamed towns

ahead

like the cow

i don't have a country to go to

there is no table for us

to drink honey 

like this moment

without a watch