What will there be when this is done

I love the intimacy of the cardinal and sunflower. It’s not just food that attracts him, he is closer. It is that nearness, the neck over the face embrace, the kiss. The sunflower knows it was made for this moment, its whole being went into this: the height, the flower, the head of soft color that comes in early fall. The sunflower has endured: the bee, the hard rain and winds, the heat (oh, the heat), the finches who tear at its halo and then this. Just in the past two days, chickadees, more finches, a tufted titmouse and then this fellow. He has looked right at me as I stood at the window, as though to ask, what will there be when this is done?

Here's an older poem that wonders the same question.

Vacancy

The cats take their places of worship
around the quilted mound of my body
and like a benevolent god I rest under
their gaze. They purr their prayers
to the shadows, slender children moving
toward sleep. The room becomes silent
I am vigilant. The house settles, a dog shakes
its collar and, in the hallway, my son’s desk lamp
finally closes the darkness. He moves one day closer
to becoming a man.

I cannot stop the night.

 

 

Sorrow-based cloth

Autumn started here much like how it did in Italy. One day summer, the calendar and earth record a day and the next day clear cool weather and a slanted light that shows new things in what had been shadow.

I was up before dawn yesterday listening to the owls. They had a long and animated talk while day got closer. Yesterday it got up to into the mid 70’s but the humidity was so low and a nice wind was blowing. This morning it was “chilly”, mid 40’s, the birds were fluffed and puffed and huddled on the deck waiting for their feeders. (I’ve put out the first suet feeder for anyone migrating and needing extra chow.) I noted a number of finches scouring the sunflowers for the last seeds; in fact, there is one there right now dining.

I spent a lot of time these past few days thinking about missing people. Not just those that are somewhere else and I miss them, though there is a lot of that. Not just those that have passed out of my life through time, neglect, hurt and silence. And of course, those gone from the world. Missing and grief go hand in hand, in many instances they wear the same sorrow-based cloth. There is the same number of words you can throw into the wind hoping it will attach itself to dust, pollen, winged things and get the words where they need to go. The type of missing people I was thinking about are all those missing through societal neglect. Because when it comes down to it, that’s what it is. As a country (though we are not the only one) we have decided who is worth saving and who is worth looking for when they have disappeared. Those women, those children and those men who “go missing” weren’t part of an overnight turn of events. America for years has been busy selecting who can live, who has worth. It’s what the country – every country? – is built on. We continue to have that striding toward our promise of a better nation, but we have grown accustomed to the pushing others aside and forgetting they exist so that when one of their loved ones, one of their precious children (we are all someone’s child) only those few who matter (to the press, to the police, to those _____ ) get seen as someone worth our thoughts and prayers and search dogs. And it continues to appear that blonde and blue-eyed missing is a tragedy beyond compare. It continues.

Missing

All night long I dreamt lost things home –
the brown pony with the yarn mane,
the girl whose brother paces the street,
my father’s voice, the school ring lost at
the homecoming game – things gone
through time, misunderstanding, inflexibility,
or neglect.

These dreams were dramatic, redemptive
like purple crocus through snow,
or the hummingbird that tasted my cheek.

On waking I ventured to the front door,
sure the rabbits had found
the transplanted asters, ready to settle
back on earth, I was greeted
by the missing dog, gone a week,
who squeezed past the entry, curled to my leg,
kissed my foot in gratitude.

Now it's dusk

 

This morning, high up in the lonely pine, finches pretending to be pine cones. I love how they go right to the top and then shuffle down blending and shifting colors. I also appreciate that they stayed while I went back into the house to get my camera.

I have a begonia plant that I’ve had for two years, I originally bought two hanging baskets and then have been cutting the plant back, repotting and at times propagating. Right now, it’s under a tree near our bedroom where it gets sun and lots of shade and water when it rains. It is also the only place I’ve seen this beauty.

Behind the house I did a quick study of the flower bed, the well picked over sunflowers and the cosmos both blooming and producing seeds – I’ve already saved a big bag full of seeds for next year. While there I was buzzed by the hummingbirds (well known jerks) and then saw the designated Monarch. I notice one a day.

But now it’s dusk, still very warm out, the cicadas are here singing their loud ‘hey baby, hey baby’ song. A small rabbit is munching clover, one of the kids who lives at the first house on the cul-de-sac is spinning around in the street, he’s probably nine, the kind of thing you should be doing on a Friday night in September. Lazy turns, arms out spinning. Over the trees the sound of a band – maybe football tonight at the local high school. My neighbors are out with their son playing, he has a little track for his scooting trike. He’s two and a half now, it’s been really fun watching him grow. The moon is almost above the trees.

I water my tomatoes and geraniums. No rain in the forecast until Monday or Tuesday.

Last night I read poems for First Draft Writer’s Series out of Pendleton. Here’s a poem I read that is full of wonder and light, kind of like what is happening outside right now.

Moonrise

horse face, horse lore in craters,
horses asleep along the shore of the Sea
of Tranquility. Imagine this:

Horses under moonlight
turning into the yard and you wake
to the shiver of the great beasts
teasing and tearing and pulling
the fine grasses of the lawn; their bulk
beneath the window causes the old
house to shudder. They sample
the globe headed peony, snorting
at the cat on the porch who will not
leave her post as long as these shadows
billow. They taste the lilac, the pansy,
the dainty faces of the primrose before
trimming all the willows to horse high lengths

and then they discover the apple tree
its small gems still ripening and then corn,
though fenced in it is still horse neck
accessible. And you have wandered
with them, but room to room until you stand
now at the kitchen window, laughing.
These night mares yours for the taking.

You slip out of the house,
talk softly to them and they turn, snort welcome
and warning but allow you close. Their scent
is sweeter than the first cut hay, their odor
honest and for a moment you are high
on sweat and dust. Like permission you offer
your outstretched palm, salty and damp.
With a bow you place you face near them
blow into their great nostrils and take their
breath into your own lungs. Now a part
of the creature, you pull up onto the shortest
animal, adjust and grab the mane.

As though this was part of a mission, they move
out of the yard, cross the road and enter
your neighbor’s wheat field. We all grab stalks
chewing the green heads as we walk toward
the river. The night sky is full of stars pushing
down, touching the backs of the horses, the top
of your head. At the river we meet deer, elk
and owls who sense you and hold their talk.
You are not horse, you are not wild, your bit
of moondust has forgotten this magic. When
your companions’ step into the water to drink
it is easy to slide off into the coolness, float
away to the far bank. When you turn all heads
are watching you; none cross to bring you back.

Then the moonrises higher, the water shimmers pewter
the horses and deer and elk all turn silver
and the owl with one long cry swoops past
and disappears into the stars. Shivering you
slide back into the water and all the animals
retreat leaving you alone to wander back toward
the outline of the barns, your house, the moon
now following along, but dragging its feet.

Crashing forward

Earlier this week when I was out getting the bird feeders, I could hear some owls chatting. It sounded like they were over behind my neighbor’s house. Their backyard butts up to the wooded area that ends the neighborhood and it’s where the deer often enter the yards (and fox sightings happen). I tried to listen closely to see if there was anything they wanted to tell me but the cicadas were out of control. Ear splitting levels of sound.

Because we are crashing toward the fall equinox the light was perfect and low and, because we are crashing toward the fall equinox, the temperature and humidity were also perfect and low. I stood out a long time. The brown cat came by to see the flat cat and agreed I could talk to her for a few minutes but she really was looking for a groundhog and left me quite soon. She comes around mornings and afternoons and looks in my windows, I know she’s looking for Ursula and Zora, so I broke it to her today that they are gone. She took it well, bit me while we talked and then walked off to her next adventure. That’s how she is.

Tonight, the owls are quiet, the cicadas calm, we’re suppose to get another few hot days and then we may slide into fall. I’m ready.

Owls as love birds

I imagine in their cages that they see me a prey,
that at the moment the door is left they will swoosh out,
hold me down with their talons. Do they hear a death knell
when I speak; pretend that I am some rodent
to digest and pass? As I walk past, indifferent eyes
never look at, but through me.

I believe that even though they hunt as solo entities,
they would tag team me like an evil wrestling duo,
each hold another horrible and unfair pain. Would I blame
them, plotting like this, if they plot?
Deep, deep in the dark they call in their hollow
throated way, and my heart tells me to beware.

Distraction

 

I’ve lost a good deal of time the past few days watching various birds around the house. The weather has turned cooler and the humidity has dropped below sauna and the activity level outside is up. Today a tufted titmouse pair were swinging through the magnolia searching for bugs and they didn’t notice me as I came by the window. This was behind the house where I look out from my office. Once I spotted them, I froze, and they hopped and gobbled, gobbled and hopped up and down the bush. Then a hummingbird arrived, they don’t care if I’m at the window but the titmouse (titmice?) got a number of close fly-bys and hovers. Little busy body busy-body. And then a Carolina Wren ran down the forsythia and into the little garden of sunflowers and cosmos. Lost time. I’ve gone down a number of time traps as I’ve been organizing closets and relooking what is in boxes (after so many moves and gathering of things from Oregon a couple of years ago, it was needed). I finally, finally, finally went through the pages and pages and pages of printed out poems and I know I have electronic versions so I emptied the folders and sent these things to the recycle bin. But in all this I came across things I thought I had lost, a dear poem from a dear friend written for me when I turned twenty; an essay I wrote once about poetry with single syllable words and no repeated words. Precious things my children wrote or drew, a collection of ticket stubs from various travels and museums and concerts (a headband from Bob Dylan and Carlos Santana’s 1984 World Tour – I typically wore bandana headbands then; it was thrilling to find. I saw them in Rome). Later this weekend I’ll continue through the boxes of photos. That’s the hard work. Jerry already said he wouldn’t be helping with those. These just need organized (why is a baby picture of Justine in with a picture from Krakow?) but I know I’d lose him: emotionally it is hard. And when I need a break, I’ll look out my window for some wonder and light.