Passive ArchitectVegas compared to an Oasis
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Vegas
.
The city is wide open
the lights draw you in from the desert
half a population of people work for the show
pull your money into their booming oasis.
Blinking, clicking, cracking, crooning
for your love, and admiration of this ridiculous marvel
awaiting the thirst of a hungry person.
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On a Flight to Nevada
.
And so, the sun will wait
to set for me
but the city won’t wait to miss
the last show, the closing hour.
.
A wind will ring again
the leaves slowly bloom
the mountain laurel opens pink
at the tall ridges we
climb, slowly between naps
the city keeps growing, hindering
the proper evolution of man
which means I have been too
busy for loneliness.
.
What have we forgotten to look for
in our rush to notice first?
The speed and entangled manner of
technology that keeps us preoccupied to live?
.
.
I have a library full of thin spines. I read a lot of poetry, and was lucky enough in February to listen to my favorite poet, Claudia Emerson, at Waynesburg University. Other books that I’ve read this year include the end of the Harry Potter Series, Son of the Wilderness: The Life of John Muir, Bel Canto by Ann Patchett, and Late Wife by Claudia Emerson. What would you recommend?
My Neighbor
.
The neighbor is replacing his roof
smothering even more the life that exists
between himself and the sky.
.
The men he has hired to climb ladders
to make his house taller
sit on his front porch for lunch.
.
One of their wives has brought them
sandwiches in her van. Why does she come
in honor of lunch, an excuse to break the day in half?
.
Journey across town, just to wipe
The mustard from his fat top lip.
It’s sweet when she kisses the roofer in the shade
Goodbye and she talks about where she needs to be next.
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Engaging Mountains
.
We started our hike later than we should have.
Noon was breaking and the sky clear.
.
Past the deep spruce forest only two miles into the hike.
We began the scramble, through a gate only a few were permitted to go.
.
Karins weren’t so easy to see. For a while
after each blaze we scoured up the red rock
hoping each step was put forth in correct effort.
.
Moving at the pace of the sun
the top kept moving from us.
Over every false summit
finally seeing tiny black people against the sand and sky.
The effort so tiring was giving hope.
.
Up the last mile of ash we moved
one step for every two,
sinking into the volcano herself.
.
In the thirty years since she’d last erupted
new ecosystems were growing.
We climbed young glaciers with our movement
both strong and pervasive.
.
My boyfriend always two steps taller than me,
leading us over to on top of this landscape.
.
The physical strain was our gratitude to nature,
our passage into a clear being,
an intuitiveness between the trees,
gravity and our thoughts so easily aligned.
.
From that height nature opened her mouth,
the center of the volcano still steaming.
Small rocks falling into the cauldron.
.
Our exhaustive effort giving awe to God,
the sky, the mountains that rose close
enough for us to see and name.
.
We were more thankful with our physical effort behind us.
And at that height, of first climbing a mountain,
a living volcano, the boy asked me to marry him.
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I was Looking
.
Tired legs in the middle of August,
but I write from deep December
said yes to India
Let her float me away in the beautifully adorned air balloons.
I stared up, stared far, and let the unsettling faults dissolve from me.
.
It began to snow this morning
let me stay to myself
deep shadows
different from yesterday
to be kept in only one day
before melting
.
Today is suddenly more special
stumbling on something
I forgot existed.
.
I go to this land of beauty
and boxes of gold
to leave something
let them know I was looking
.
Like snow on cars and streets
I see where they were walking
when they were driving.
And I enjoy knowing
more than I should.
On the Fence
Protecting land
corn farm alternating soybean fields
a son more worried
about not being wrong
than being right.
.
Hiding feeling behind earthquakes
clouds in the mind
small disruptions
smeared red and blurred
confusion runs
blushing angry
into a wall.
.
Some people lay dormant for one hundred years
before blooming again.
.
Like larger questions, the spindly shoots
are tightly wrapped with last year’s harvest
loamy soil
worm droppings and flower petals
too deep to untangle.
The Land Cracked in Texas
People watered the foundations of their house
dry mouth
flat air
the salty ocean was breaking on my fence
salt sweats after running a marathon
resembled the film on brittle grass.
My day wakes early
near the sound of birds
and the yawns of babies
a walk near the ocean
met with swimming in a lake
we live like Romans do
in the height of suburbia
sleep between crashing oceans
the silence of a loved accomplice
critters in a full lit night
where we may own the stars
small work
getting ready in the evenings
owning up to books
our surroundings of
interpreted happiness
Houses
or things in the afternoon
stepping out from the world
a girl in a new language
lacy photographs
pages on fire
foggy mornings
I’ve missed you in
Two lost Lovers
It is my secret
to fly over many oceans
if we have the same taste
our mothers express
it in all our secrets
the night to wonder
nothing to be shamed
.
We’ll all go home to bed ourselves
beside cups of
coffee and books of rain
up the coast from weather
between the beaconing sounds
of two lost lovers.
