Raven’s throaty morning chuckle
cascades down as he dives toward Sadie.
Their legends still hail the day they buzz-bombed her as a wild pup.
Her grudge grows with every swoop.
Grizz
How many frost-crisp mornings
have I watched them in
my beloved Northern Valley?
Not nearly enough, I can tell you.
Ruefully I count them on
fingers and not hands.
My first sparking thought
springs, involuntary
…they are electric!
Grizzled follicles
emit a rolling, bristling
energy that
can’t be described any other way.
I’ve had, always,
a kindred tie –
a blood mate with this knot
of muscle and fat.
From a deep-cell dream
of putting my last-day foot
into his print full of silvered
evening lit water –
to a waking vision
of a bear husband,
as I lay alone, undressed
under the wilderness sun
longing for you,
that time long ago when we were new –
to the dream of being a bruin myself,
waking mid-winter, groggy,
disoriented and wondering why
all that protruded from the deep snow
was the very top tip of
the same Douglas firs
that towered over Summer.
One precious, valley sun-dogged morning
I watched dream-readied
fat and muscle roll;
a huge boar lifted heavy padded feet
to step over fallen trees as if they were twigs.
Electric! – I thought.
And now – I am quietly satisfied with this idea –
such power and might
lays curled in darkness,
breathing heavy steam,
beneath the ground snow.
Does he now dream of me
– silver skinned, in cold stream draughts of
cut-throat plenty?
Luna Within
Early this morning,
deep inside,
I discovered an image of
Luna, our lovely moon.
I found it completely by surprise
from within a steel pod;
a spaceship
surrounded by the loud, shuttering sound
of magnetic pulses;
a needle buried in my vein.
Compression, contrast,
a hot cold flash
of iodine
flowing through
tributaries,
quicksilver, radiant
in the darkened interiors
of my chest.
Silver traces that brightened monitors
in another room – another planet.
But back to that likeness of Luna…
there she was
perfectly preserved
on a computer screen.
Brilliant with soft light,
surrounded by night,
rounded, lined with
arroyos, canyons,
the ray systems of Tycho,
Copernicus, Kepler, Proclus
and something that looked like
Sea of Tranquility…
though tranquil it was not.
An electronic exploration
of what dwells deep inside,
nestled right next to
a small kernel of unspoken dread
and unquenchable hope,
each, buried side by side
within my breast.
Mythic Flood
These waters arrive
in mythic proportion
to test and teach us,
to discover our
depth.
Beneath those
rushing floods
are scribed the
letters of who
we are
at the heart
of our matters.
Each night we
submerge,
limbs and lips
locked,
we rise again as
one.
Strengthened,
joined,
by the whispered
words we find
flowing beneath
our
embrace.
Hold me steady, there
in your arms,
a shining fish
feeding from the silvered
river.
And I will hold you,
soft skin and flashing teeth
until the
rose light of morning
creeps into
the coming day.