Crossing Nottingham

                                      In memory of Boo

The machinery was swift, unforgiving
There was no reprieve, no stay.

I stood on the lawn searching
the gray pavement for your paths.
But you were too light to leave any.
If I pulled up this hard road
and attenuated my instruments,
would I see the tracings
of your passagings there
in the exposed earth?
Take this way the markings would say.

Before you  was not a path.
After, an impression that keeps after me.
You picked yourself up
and put yourself down.
Over and over.

There is no report on you,
just the hard facts of memory
inside the soft, silent way
you negotiated yourself
through the still light
and the tumbling darkness.

Mood

Interior weather moving through,
a color not seen,
muting.

Always framed for something,
set up to take the fall,
it awakens as transcription,
as the blue diamond on
someone else's forehead,
as advantage taken
of the immobile, immutable.

It burns down in its holder,
smoke then smell then
just soft grey sift.

Only in sleep is it read back.
Somewhere the slight motions of
an otherwise still stenographer
capture and release,
ready to repeat as needed
repeat as needed.

Out of what it comes
is not clear
but what is noticed
is you are
its conformity.

The Long Count

Sometime during the 13th b'ak'tun
Jack Dempsey floored Gene Tunney.
The long count...

There is nothing left to bet on
but what time it is.

I drive my car through a time zone.
My phone lets me know.

Someone is reading endless magazines.
My phone lets me know.

I have the death app now.
I miss my quiet immortality.
The long count...

She said de Chardin's noosphere
is not just full of knowledge.
It must have experience too.
Wouldn't it?

Are we at war?
My phone lights up.
Traffic fatalities today...
Worldwide or local?
Choose.

Transport me to that place
where everything is opening,
where I am standing
on the horizon
and I know it.

The Conditions

The conditions showed up with briefcases.
They looked like average guys,
laughing and bumping each other
while they acted like they were talking.
Briefcases clicked and out came
parts of a bigger thing.
The parts formed a box
that I found myself inside.
"Inside?"  I questioned.
"No,  just resting,"  the conditions responded.
Time passed and I received layers of help.
An image arose of a pineapple upside down cake
that made me so hungry

I missed the cake metaphor.
"No matter,"  I said
as the cake slide out of perspective.
Entertainment arrived,
brightly colored hand knitted forms
that appeared to be partially finished,
or unraveling.
"No matter,"  I said
as I wrapped one around my head.
Finally word came of what was
happening outside the box.
At first I was so happy
for the word
that I didn't notice
it was one word
repeated over and over.
I asked for a sentence
but accepted silence.
"No matter,"  I said
as I saved the word.
The light changed in the box.
I noticed a bowl of
blue opinions by my feet.
I chewed on one while
pondering my word.
A pit was all that was left.
"No matter,"  I said
as I sucked on the pit.
Eventually it softened
and split in two.
I stopped sucking and
noticed where I was.
I remembered the sharpie
in my shirt pocket.
There was just enough light
to draw a conclusion in the box side.
I exited.
The conditions were nowhere to be found.

Louise Gluck

Celestial Music

I have a friend who still believes in heaven.
Not a stupid person, yet with all she knows, she literally talks to God.
She thinks someone listens in heaven.
On earth she's unusually competent.
Brave too, able to face unpleasantness.

We found a caterpillar dying in the dirt, greedy ants crawling over it.
I'm always moved by disaster, always eager to oppose vitality
But timid also, quick to shut my eyes.
Whereas my friend was able to watch, to let events play out
According to nature. For my sake she intervened
Brushing a few ants off the torn thing, and set it down
Across the road.

My friend says I shut my eyes to God, that nothing else explains
My aversion to reality. She says I'm like the child who
Buries her head in the pillow
So as not to see, the child who tells herself
That light causes sadness-
My friend is like the mother. Patient, urging me
To wake up an adult like herself, a courageous person-

In my dreams, my friend reproaches me. We're walking
On the same road, except it's winter now;
She's telling me that when you love the world you hear celestial music:
Look up, she says. When I look up, nothing.
Only clouds, snow, a white business in the trees
Like brides leaping to a great height-
Then I'm afraid for her; I see her
Caught in a net deliberately cast over the earth-

In reality, we sit by the side of the road, watching the sun set;
From time to time, the silence pierced by a birdcall.
It's this moment we're trying to explain, the fact
That we're at ease with death, with solitude.
My friend draws a circle in the dirt; inside, the caterpillar doesn't move.
She's always trying to make something whole, something beautiful, an image
Capable of life apart from her.
We're very quiet. It's peaceful sitting here, not speaking, The composition
Fixed, the road turning suddenly dark, the air
Going cool, here and there the rocks shining and glittering-
It's this stillness we both love.
The love of form is a love of endings.
~Louise Gluck

Make Water Change World

for cold fusion

There is no elegant answer.
Better living through chemistry
arrived by coach, spitting blood,
cocking a suspecting eye at
the trying times of magic.

At the Hatterie I tried on headware,
looking at my reflection,  waiting a moment.
Different lids for different jars.
Waiting, my mind wandered into the
age of discovery where a cold meal
of contingent sandwich and ale
led to a nap, the nap to
rummaging in a dream, the
dream carrying the occult out
the back door in a small red
leather satchel where a carriage
awaited departure. It was late.
It was a discovery that would
not tolerate the darkness.
I realized I would have to speak
in numbers, reason, elegant formulas, tongues.
All to prove what is.
"What if I can't prove what this is that exists?" I heard myself shout.
The driver leaned down from his perch. "It's all imagination, isn't it!"

Back at the Hatterie I noticed the hat on my head.
A dark brown, floppy fedora.
Someone like me was tapping the source.
Someone was dreaming at the same glass
of water I was holding. Bare-headed,
another philosophical eye.
Nothing in hand.
Likewise the water showed nothing.
Demure, clear.

Leaving Earth

I told you not to go out there
unless you wanted to stay.
Deep in the house, deep in yourself
part of you sits still and part of
you is moving, this way and that.

The train I hear late sounds like
it is moving away to the south,
a long cruising whale sliding
through the night, sounding.

You stand still, that mysterious
extension still swaying.
The sliding glass door hisses and you 
could be on your way to St Louis.
It is a long walk,
probably three hours by train.

But you would be leaving earth
wouldn't you?
Leaving the tea kettle,
the fresh bread, the dog's telemetry,
the children calling you in the evening.
The umpire of whiffle ball, the
referee of 21 in the driveway,
the driveby window's shadow
in the diamond night.

Tonight I hand carried you
across the threshold and you
lived a while here in the kitchen
crunching a bowl of food,
letting me stand there
in your black stream.
Right there at the meeting of noses,
mine scentless, yours so capable,
we touched,  you released me,
and I fell back to earth.
I called out your two names.
The first means where?
the second, come.
Your world can not be my earth,
only a summary of my affection.

Now you are on the corner
of your world   among the
street light shadows of rabbits.
Your darkness fuses with shrubs.
Your breath,  stealth.