Found in Willow Springs 94
1960s Skies
Not particular clouds but their motion
against a blue tinged with leaded gasoline
rolling clouds muscular as turbines
the moon an eyebrow raised over a sagebrush sea
night satellites like calm and distant octopi
drifting over my sleeping bag in my first backyard
wind and the voices inside the wind
remembered skies are made of
socked in under a dome
painted to look like sky
Late November
Time slips at twilight,
loses its grip
on puddles outside
the coffee shop window
and raggedy blinds
across the street.
It pulls me out the door
for the last measure of light.
Here, somewhere near,
meaning blinks.
like a secret animal in its burrow.
It’s now. It’s fifty years ago.
Crows start arriving to roost,
raucous as usual.
Crows, won’t you quit?
Leave. Let me be.
A bird or an answer
darts out of the dusk,
calling me to dinner
in Mother’s lost voice.
THE CAT IS MISSING, DAY
EIGHT
and I for lack of ideas
scramble randomly
into a grove of trees
two blocks from home.
My stumbling entrance
then silence.
A twig snaps in the undergrowth.
Then everything green goes still.
No missing
that animal spirit
frozen under ground cover
and boughs
received as an SOS
a bioluminescence of fear
brighter than the animal
it belongs to.
Once in a European basilica
I felt I’ll call it a shape
and tried to meet it
arms lifted as though
dressing in the dark
unsure of which or how to
arm hole or button
or if the garment could fit.
Chester were you
transubstantiated
from always hungry
annoying and sweet
to priestlike
by a week of nights
under these alders
and how long do I
stand here
trying to find out?
It’s twilight.
The trees are black belfries.
Birds swing the incense
of their songs in arcs.
They know
I’m the weakest of believers.
They know
what happened to Chester
but will never tell.
We couldn’t care less
they warble
heartless.
And beautiful May is unstoppable.
