October, what will you bestow? You’ve left
the tulips and long daffodils unborn,
and spreading ferns aloof in darkest glens;
your brown leaves have revealed a scarlet thorn
to snag the frosty mornings. Mallards will
not light upon the weir, and open skies
remove their lightest blue. The fallow rose
is waiting for the spring–and like my eyes,
discolored branches search for green. [...]
(For Beikake)
both in white sarong
I bend you through the font
watch fabric rise
on water troubled
by the currents of death
______________________________________________________________
Mateu, Matem (Gilbertese): “my death, your death.”
_____________________________________________________________
For Tyler’s bio and his other submission to the Spring Poetry Runoff, go here.
*Non-contest submission*
More than any winter I had known, that winter.
In evening I pruned against winter’s loss.
The sky echoed from the first spring’s rain.
At my touch, the tree quivered, beading.
The tree arched like two hands cupped,
reaching up, fingers outstretched.
Sarah stood in the light of the door,
leaning against a white pillar,
calling me home from the dark;
as each branch [...]
I never saw so many frogs;
You didn’t either. We walked
the tracks, sometimes stepping
from tie to tie, sometimes
walking the rail–holding
our hands out as if
for balance. It was all show.
Our balance was never
in question. Besides the danger
ran in the other direction,
along the bridge. We
could look down, almost dizzy,
and see the river. But even there,
we didn’t need our [...]
Dusted red stone
wrapped in gray deluge
yields greened cliffs shimmering
like an unearthly vision
in sunshine’s morning haze.
Silver gray brush bears yellow blossom cascades.
Stands of ocotillo—no longer barren,
barricaded with thorns—
blush tiny green leaves until
burnt orange petals burst from their fingertips.
Drying mesquite scents air
alive with the rush of rabbits, cooing doves,
the hawk’s hunting cry, coyotes’ eerie babble,
silent lizards thawing [...]
Driving to the top
of Little Pine Creek Canyon,
I see how the reservoir fares,
how deeply it curves
against hand-mortared stone.
Home for spring break,
I’d overheard
that it’s filling up good this year.
(Was it at Terry’s Merc?
Or at the Relief Society Birthday Ball
where I watched a former cheerleader
dance in maternity clothes?)
No matter.
It’s enough to watch
water swell like metaphor
while I remember
that [...]
you rustle me as long grass,
stirring and scattering
me to grow
in places where I otherwise
would not.
I want to grow a garden for you,
to teach you the beauty of your
nurturing,
to put in colors and leaves and
petals and
fibers
the sunlight-directedness that from
you I have learned,
that perhaps,
when your roots are plucked
and your flowering withered,
you may look to me,
remember the springtime,
and [...]
I was getting cold feeling bored going down the road again
This was yesterday
But I like to use the past simple tense so it looks even further away
So I told my girlfriend
I think I’m going through a brand new crisis
What crisis?
She sat up and smiled as wide as she could
That kind of crisis, you know
That kind [...]
Under these clouds the earth
Has raised a monument
To herself, tier by tier, a replica
Of the stone beneath my feet.
I am stone, too–stone
And one hot wick of life
Fusing me to the first generation,
Flaring forward from me to the last.
Stone, thread, and rain
One March, Grandfather held
A forked stick by the prongs
And walked slowly back and forth
Across the [...]
Haere mai:
I’ve anticipated your soul-deep
craw. Stewed pork bones and potatoes
to tender verging on cream. Sent the kids,
brown bodies sliding between the breeze,
to gather more puha from the fenceline.
Sonchus oleraceus: slides from the tongue
into the boil just long enough to soften
the cellulose, give the broth enough bite
to open the palate, throw windows wide
on sense. To bathe [...]