Idaho.
Alkali desert.
Greasewood.
Distant crop prices on the radio.
The scrape of highway narrows
to a single country song.
Then finally the mountains
arrive on big red shoulders.
The back side
of the Tetons
says wait
till you see the other side.
I saw him dance Swan Lake.
He was utterly thrilling
because he was humble.
Standing with heels together,
as if waiting for Icarus to move out of the way.
It was not enough for him to fly through air–
air was a poor canvas for what he did.
He took your heart in his hands and said, look what God wants from us–
he wants joy. He wants us to feel his joy.
If I were to write a home repair manual for poetry,
I would put those words into Baryshnikov’s mouth
and ask you to believe that you stand in his incomparable satin shoes.
A human heart pumps enough blood
over the course of a lifetime to fill a super tanker.
Say this heaving ship full of blood
hits a shoal and spills its precious cargo into the sea.
All the proud, anxious, willful hours
infused in an entire liquid lifetime
mix with the dreams of sea urchins
and manta rays become blinded by love incarnadine.
Above the waves a lighthouse casts it’s watery beam
on a little white clapboard Catholic church near the bay.
A priest bends over with an aching back to tie his shoes,
wondering–out of nowhere– if God gave sea creatures
a mining claim on the un-lived fossil bed lives of his believers.
Posted in journal, SelectedPoems
Scratch, jack, bones,
skins, buckage, bank.
The nicknames change over time.
Did you know your distant ancestors worked no more
than four hours a day to earn their living?
They did not have a twenty four hour fire hose
of distractions, though.
Living was distraction enough.
If you find yourself addicted to electronic distractions
in the interstitial time between work and sleep, try saving a third of your income.
Your income is the congealed energy you traded your time for.
This practice will help wake you up.
And don’t forget to write.
