Rügen Island, Day Trip
The Baltic Sea
We went looking where you had never been
where water kept us
in circus with megalithics of the Stone Age
they had centuries
we had a day
the fields ran along
excited by our bus
tossing their pale manes
assured as all recently shorn things are
of comeliness
we were a view they did nothing to get
they would not miss us
when we left
the forest was close and dark as sockets
but for narrowed light
that dropped down through
and turned into a hearth and
in a dip in the middle
a man who had nothing to say
noticed a swamp of green choke like a drained sea
trees counted us easily on their green thumbs
ignoring the one
who turned to speak to an empty seat
and the woman at the kiosk
dragging behind her
a sweater by one arm
at the chalk white cliffs
dust climbed into our cloths and ears
we could not run fast enough
to be so high
a boy collected a rock and struck flint
swans and gulls
veered from sea toward their own color
and disappeared
then we went down around
under an early moon
trees leaned
willows oaks
the scrubs we have at home
a small red berry
the bus worked hard at an edge
we could not watch
and later I heard the scrape of shoes
against a mat
and fell asleep hard against the window
“It is better” the guide said “at the next stop
to keep together”
our shade jumped on the farms
the animals the rust
while right in front of me
a man smoothed his hair
his nails leaving a soft trail
he tightened when I told him about the birds
then we were out again
and into a town with an old church
our hearts sleeping
our legs like pneumatics
our minds attentive only to
the mobile gods in the carpark
someone out of film said
“permanence is adherent sin”
a woman looked for her keys
and near a fence
a horse lay all the way down on its side
It was our longest day
in the way of doing nothing
we were happy not to be lost
we had a stone a flint a schedule
a conveyance
which must have seemed to the eclipsed
very much like wings
Rocks
Easter Washington Scablands
The presence of so many
stone on stone
on stone
or the nature of the hand
makes you pick one
for your skin
a fisted rattle
Thrown inevitably
as far beyond the arm
as it can go
it arcs to the invisible
further instruction
absent
in the wrist
Bingen
Eastern Washington
Calm of short duration
rapids over rocks
stanchions sunk
paths among the apples
All waters under pressure
fold as where the sun
tips mountains
No further business for the lithe
Snow quite close now
Maryhill that way
far the Teanaway Basalts
the suck of silt spinning
behind the butte
a raw cut road
the utterances of birds
buffed for late hour listening
at night the narrow pins of stars
Anastomosis
Spokane
Heavy from the Frenchman Hills
the burned Browne’s Mountain
flecked with leaves
wind lies down
tired in a whole new place
the screen
a scraped cry
as I step out
not long
for rearrangement
Sediment
the steep-walled basins
water braiding base basalt
your call after
the bright desperate day
Forced Lobelia
1
we stay
in his apartment in Italy
he goes out early
his mother left us lace
blessed us with coffee
the mysteries
of someone’s home
not touching anything
the bells above the tower used by Galileo
the shop to sell us eggs if we could ask
so much grace for the displaced
2
a patterned wall
the door
its sill several inches up
an accepted threat
the complicated spider
climbing dust and silk
to get to
real danger
3
a forced lobelia
in latest spring
or earlier
but after (or before)
beginning and
still looking
from a lamp
what’s next
4
I wanted to be
a cartographer
a conductor stonemason garden architect
librarian
each charged with aspects
and placing them
within a frame
it is cold
in the higher reaches
it doesn’t mean to be
5
one
then a second of his sons
different houses
different days
fried eggs for him
as if that were a custom of men
as natural as a ventricle
we all still know
they did that
6
but sometimes beauty
in its thicket
picks up something
and shows it to you
then
it’s best
to be on your feet
and after it