Trail stones

Carved in shapes

You might name

A sphinx, a sparrow, or

Tribal effegies

Littered by time

In the black sage biome

Whittled by nothing certain

Other than rain

And wind–not man

But that would be

A good guess

Aided by Earth’s turning,

Imperceptible lathe

The hawk, too

In his circles

Stops

Spies something

Plummets down the ridge

Outcome uncertain

In the green awakening;

Life beneath the silver sea

Its subtle drama

You can only read the surface

Of some things–here

There is everything

If you open your eyes

Long enough.

A picture of a girl

Going through a door

In transition, chosen

As an emblem

Or a symbol–waving, is it…

Or brushing off voyeurs?

A half smile, it would seem, inviting

Or is it the making

Of a frown

Apt phrase in mind

For the moment

But unable to write it down;

Lines, paragraphs

And books about books

Upon shelves–the juggernaut

Of self–figuring out how

To use these gifts

That occur in their sentences

As a glue, a salve

Or an elixir

That makes it easier

To breathe, somehow, and to live

A right-sized life…

I put the picture away

But the memory is bright

And burning as haiku:

The sight of the sun ascending

Determined to rise

And not go down;

In the end, the picture

Wherever it may be

Has taken on

A life of its own.

Old woman

At Malibu

Asleep in the sun

I’d seen her

Begging before

In another town

“Can I have a dollar

Or some extra change?”

And I usually

Found her some, like

All those ships

In the Spanish Armada

She never expected

To wind up

Where she did

Asleep at the bottom

Of the Starbuck’s stairs

Scarf blown off to one side

Dreaming of something disturbing

I can’t tell what

But with a puzzled look

On her face.

Two small birds

Fly in circles

Around the yard;

There is no telling

What their flight plan is

Or their intentions.

“Goddam!”

I’m getting older

It’s true, the face

In the mirror mine

But no longer mine

Recognizable, in spite

Of wishful thinking

Nothing more I can do

To stave off the obvious effects

Of time, already looking back

Laughing, with its wrinkles

At my protocol of vitamins

Bottled water, bluegreen algae

Plant powders, elixirs, tinctures

Balms, creams and salves;

Nothing matters

Except the truth

Of the reflection

Right back at me

As I look on, hopefully

For signs of growing younger

A futile quest…

“Goddam!”

No matter what I do

They are winning

And God will have

The last chuckle

With his

Agelessness.

The startling symmetry

Of gulls’ wings

In the pink dawn;

Three of them

Headed southeast

As a tousled

Alley crow watches

From a wire

“Caw, Caw…Caw…”

He calls out

As if prompted

His raspy message

To no one, or nothing

I can see

So I call back to him

In my best December

Crow imitation

“Caw, caw…caw!”

An earnest, imploring

Human tone–

A broken falsetto

He looks down

For the source

Of the false greeting

Startled, pleased, scared–

Which one?

I will never know, exactly

As he flies off

To a place

Where he won’t be imitated

By a flatterer

A fake

Or an imposter.

I got

Three glasses down

From an upper shelf

At my sister’s house

On Christmas

And one of them

Had lipstick on the edge

Faded, but still

A dim red

Like a sunset rim

Or lips, after kisses

Took the lipstick away

Or a 40 year old

Red tricycle

Found in a field

Under a hedge

Still is red

Enough to show;

To remind us

It all matters–

The blush

Still makes sense

Stirs, inspires

Makes us guess;

Old lipstick

On a glass.

Yes

There were other times;

Fortunes told

On slips of paper

Lost in drawers

Found and torn up, for not

Having come true

The arguments

About God’s existence

Wrong or right

We indulged oursevles in

Over porcini pasta

And expensive Tuscan wine; proof

Would make no difference, anyway, we agreed–

As things

Would still be pretty much the same

If there were a Higher Power to decide…

These are the interludes you remember

In between moments, after business

And before bed–the welcome

Senselessness of dreams

When arguments

Are like matchsticks striking;

Little bursts of flame

To light something

For an instant, then

The acrid sting

Of grey smoke

Lingering.

You can’t forget the wind

Like that, to just

Walk away from it, I mean

As though it doesn’t matter;

Things left

In a thrown-away paper bag

By the side of the house, you found;

Two bottles of half-drunk water

A sketch pad

A hand-painted child’s locomotive

Hung on the handle

Of the back door, abandoned–

Like the wind takes stray leaves

And scatters them for good

And for no good reason…

Maybe you can guess

That’s right–guess who she was

The lady with the blond wig

In the alley

And the bright pink lipstick

Standing there, looking for something

You even asked her

“May I help you…?”

Her answer was more evasive

Than the wind itself: “No, Thank You;

I am only looking.”

Forget December–

The rain

The wind

The way things

Turned out

After the fire;

The guilty party

With the wrappers

The detectives found

(Marshmallows & franks)

And charred firewood

The cave kids play in;

Doesn’t every town

Have a place like this

Where rituals occur

And houses burn down

And lives are ruined?

What about

The rest of the world

With its earthquakes, floods

And monsoons

Not to mention

Endless wars…

Maybe we should just

Forget December;

Let these kids go free

Build it all back again

And not blame anyone

But randomness

Human nature

And the elements.