Into the Wilderness

 

 

Into the Wilderness

‘My 'gina hurts,’ she says.
She's four. We're camping.
No mothers, doctors. Nothing. Nobody.
A bat swoops low over the fern.
‘Leave it alone,’ I say.
‘Your body will fix it.’ (I pray.)
She brushes her teeth and spits into the fire.
‘It hurts,’ she says.
There are limits to my first aid training.
A splint? Tourniquet?
I grasp my flashlight. ‘Let me see.’
She is standing. ‘Sit down.’ She sits.
‘Spread your legs.’
My hand shakes.
I'm no prude, you see
yet something down there frightens me.
In four years, in spite of diapers, baths,
shameless prancing nudity, I have somehow
never looked closely never dared
feared what I would
what I now see is a
     lovely
     little
     vagina.
‘I don't see anything wrong.
Except it's dirty.’
I wash it. She squeals at the cold water.
But she's cured.
So (I think) am I.

…..

From my book Son of a Poet
Image by Jozef Mikulcik

You argue with your mother

 

You argue with your mother

about curfew, about freedom,
about blow jobs (yikes!) and
It’s not like when you were a hippie, Mom.
You punch something angry into your phone.

I take you for a driving lesson.
You’re still steaming, not concentrating
so we stop at Pescadero Beach.
Pacific waves flatten as they foam,
cool our toes. Look — a seal!
A fat furry sausage in sunshine,
lying sidewise behind boulders.

It must be injured, you say.
A tension of body, quiver of muscle.
In the eyes, a focus of internal force,
same as I saw in the eyes of your mother
the day you were born.
She’s in labor, I say.

The lady sighs. Her sides bulge, rise,
then nostrils blow little storms of sand.

Not like people, you say. She
doesn’t scream in childbirth.
Neither did your mother, I say. Real life
childbirth is not like the movies.
You chew a lock of hair, nod, smile.
Neither is real life sex, you say, for all I know.
Which shuts my mouth solid.

From outside the circle of rocks you record
with phone as a seal pup emerges, squirms
randomly until mama spanks with fin,
guides her pup flopping to a teat.

In half an hour you’ve grown taller.
Happy birthday little seal, you whisper.
Then to me, sternly: Okay. I’ll drive us home.
And again, as if I missed it: Okay!

.…..

First published in Oyster River Pages
photo by David Mark

And Here You Are — August 1978

 

And Here You Are — August 1978

Vacuuming is the first sign of labor.
Next, Rose scrubs the stovetop, washes shelves,
toothbrushes the countertop grout.
Nobody can stop her. The cabin, immaculate
as Rose calls the midwives. We go to
the back yard where we keep a waterbed
for these hot August days to bask in
the good vibes of the pine tree,
the Jersey cows in the pasture across the street,
the funky country smell of home.
The plan is, when labor picks up, we’ll drive
to the hospital for the actual birth.

Midwife Iris examines, says one centimeter
so there’s plenty of time. She and midwife Sara
make mint tea in the kitchen.
The full moon is rising, pregnant and orange.
Left alone, Rose and I smooch a little,
which seems to shift labor into high gear.
Rose feels an urge to push.
I fetch Iris whose tea is still brewing—
that’s how fast it happened.

One look, and Iris says the baby is crowning.
Forget the hospital. Sara is gathering towels,
Rose is blowing puff-puff-puff,
Iris is putting on latex gloves when
with a snorting sound your head pops out
with a hand at the neck. Your left hand.
From day one you were left-handed.
A tight fit but Iris eases you out. Sara wraps you
in a towel and places you on Rose’s belly.
You’re a girl, our steaming fresh baby.

Doctor Don arrives — Sara had called him.
He won’t go near Rose. He’s been warned
he’ll lose hospital privileges if he attends
one more hippie home birth. So he stands
by the garbage cans with his doctor bag
in case of emergency, but Iris knows exactly
what she’s doing as she delivers the placenta
with a cloud of vapor in the cool night air.
Sara lights candles that flicker with the breeze.
Moonlight casts shadows through the bishop pine.

You grasp my finger. Your cord, clamped. I cut.
I help Rose sit up, which is tricky in a waterbed,
and we put you to the breast.
Doctor Don from the garbage cans says
“I see ten fingers and ten toes. Good job.”
He departs. Iris and Sara clean up and go.

At midnight, Quinn the German shepherd
stands guard. Indoors we sleep holding
your flesh to our flesh for contact,
for affirmation of this miracle.
Welcome home our black-haired bundle of life,
our daughter forever, our precious pine cone
dropped by the moon.

.…..

Note: I love birth stories. We make plans, nature changes them. This, our second of three. Each an adventure.

If you live in poverty, are you poor?

 

If you live in poverty, are you poor?

On bicycle we’re helmeted for safety
where wild turkeys scatter.
We’re not lost, simply astray
on dirt roads among skeletal tractors,
barns with backs broken, fenceposts fallen,
barbwire in fiddlehead coils.
Forest once cleared, fights back.

Except here — wild roses line the road.
A chimney puffs smoke,
a shack sheds shingles.
In piles of sawdust guarded by chickens,
chainsaw dinosaurs roam
possibly for sale, who knows?
An old woman gathers ditch weeds
for a roadkill salad, humming.
Can’t catch her eye.
Children picking berries stare,
wave purple fingers, smile.

Stacking firewood, an old man frowns,
stays distant but points down the road,
then points left, wiggles his hand as if
snaking among curves, points right—
then waves. He knows
where we belong.

…..

First published in San Pedro River Review
photo by Mabel Amber

I have places to go but don’t

 

I have places to go but don’t

By the hissing fire I’m sitting
in a soft green chair with Mickey
who is dying, curled against my feet.
My fingers rub his neck still warm,
his ribs still rising slowly, falling,
his fur stringy and soft.

On his liver, a lesion grows.
In his blood, ammonia builds.
Muscles weaken. No appetite,
slowly for weeks he’s been starving.
I carry him in his little donut bed.
Some day soon, maybe today,
his heart will stop.

Mickey never complains.
That’s the nature of dogs about pain.
Blues yodel, yes, he’ll join the chorus
when the siren calls
but not today.

In the fireplace scraps of redwood siding
torn from my house after 80 years,
attacked by sun, rain, insect until
finally succumbing, broken down,
burn now hot, fast, bright.

Mickey still breathes. I sit.
I have things to do,
places to go but don’t.

…..

First published in Williwaw Journal
Thank you Rachel Barton, editor

I’ve seen a thousand clowns

 

I’ve seen a thousand clowns

pile out of a Volkswagen
but still I’m not prepared
when Amazon delivers a small brown box
and out pops a full-size woman
not the eye-candy type but the good-gardener type
wearing a tool belt packed with
puppies and flower pots.
I didn’t order this, I say.
Let’s get to work, she says.
On what? I say.
Exactly, she says. You are so clueless.
Give me some pliers, I say. I’m good with tools.
That’s a start, she says. Let’s build a house.
How many rooms? I say.
Kiss me quick, she says.
So I do. Not so quick.
Three point five bedrooms, she says. For wee ones.
While I hammer and saw, she watches.
And what will you be building? I ask.
Our relationship, she says.
I immediately invest every penny,
which isn’t too many, in Amazon stock.

Twenty years pass.
It’s worth a billion dollars, I say.
Give it away, she says.
But the children, I say.
Give it away, they say.
And I do.
Amazon sends an email asking
Were you satisfied with how the product was packaged?
Any damage? How did it go?
There are two checkboxes, Yes or No.

…..

First published in Freshwater

We thank the logs

 

We thank the logs

We thank the logs
    in our wood stove,
    glowing heat
    through the night.
We thank the candle’s
    quiet flame
    on our table
    giving light.

Thank you water, filling creeks
    from the sky, sweet rain.
Thank you heart, steady beat
    blood to wash each vein.

We thank the bread
    scent of yeast
    freshly warm
    at the knife.
We thank the air
    from leaf green
    to our lungs
    for this life.
…..

photo by Aline in Pixabay

Eulogy, Old Pine

 

Eulogy, Old Pine

This plank in my hand feels warm.
My fingers, cold.
I am alone in my wood shop with pieces
of a working class pine who did his job,
who drank moderately and only of rain,
who had an exterior rough, a personality prickly,
whose blood ran sticky,
who whistled while he worked,
who gifted cones of careful craft,
who dressed fancy in yellow fungus,
    in emerald moss,
who sheltered the nesting tanager,
who stood against bullying storm,
who bent with pain,
who donates his body,
whose spirit lingers
as powder on my fingers
smelling sweet as sugar.

…..

First published in Visitant
engraving by Robert Henry Logan

“If you grow old, it is your own fault,”

 

“If you grow old, it is your own fault,”

I say to Terry as we climb the hill
behind his cabin. Terry is wearing
a device that transmits his heartbeat
by cell phone to doctors at Stanford.
Terry has a flutter, nothing serious, probably.
Terry has a great heart, actually,
something serious, warm and wise.

We ascend this hill on Tuesdays every week
discussing plumbing and poetry, our
twin passions: the gathering of mountain water
funneled into pipes, delivered to homes;
the ordering of words funneled into pages,
delivered by journals, rarely.

We hike among redwoods where Kesey
painted his bus, where Cassidy chattered,
where Hells Angels gathered,
where Kool-Aid mattered.
We speak of friends fallen or falling,
the fate of pranksters, the allure of aura.
‘Old hippies’ is an oxymoron.
We are pacifists who walked away
from a war that shaped our lives,
walked to a dishonorable discharge
for honoring conscience.

So we hike, hearts pounding,
the simple friendship of two old men
seeking the hilltop again and again.

…..

From my book Foggy Dog
First published in MOON Magazine —thank you editor Leslee Goodman
Photo is of Terry (left) and me.

Note: Terry Adams rescued and restored the Ken Kesey cabin in La Honda. The saga of that rescue is here.

 

I am

 

I am

I am from Sibley Hospital
in Washington DC where
my mother bought me
like military surplus
after World War Two.
The receipt she saved  
in a dusty drawer
made me sneeze:
“Delivery (normal) $48”
stamped PAID.

I am from B&O coal cars
pennies on the track
under rivers of black
from mountains made hollow
for the city.

I am dust from hitchhiker’s thumb
blown from Appalachian lowland
to foggy redwoods of California.

I am lapping tongue of dog,
many whiskers, one spirit.

I am the dripping faucet
the rot of old wood.
Call me, I’ll repair.

I am stories
I can’t stop telling
words I can’t stop writing
including my own receipt:
“Exit (normal). No charge.”
Past due.

…..

The photo is of me, 1954 in my favorite cowboy shirt, a hand-me-down from my brother. People were always telling me “Smile!” I would not.

Biopsy

 

Biopsy

They tell me later
while sedated on the gurney
I forgot to breathe.
Nurse (tiny woman)
shouts “Breathe, dammit!”
so I do. I pay attention
to women.

Another nurse (burly, male)
apologizes for shaving my chest hair,
asks if I mind. I understand men.

A voice asks me to choose
music for the room. I say “Bluegrass.”
Voice asks “Huh?”

They dose me with fentanyl
so I have not a care, I float
simply curious watching
as a doc pokes holes between ribs.
Fingers, instruments, giant needles,
a sharp and delicate ballet to bluegrass
ballads of betrayal, hearts broken,
songs of mortality making the surgeon wince.

Bandage, bed rest, recovery ward
while a moaning woman behind a curtain
curses loudly in Spanish.
Might I suggest
fentanyl?

X-ray says I’m okay
to discharge. Lab results
news good or bad next week.
Woozy in wheelchair to curbside
to home with my love to sleep all afternoon,
then evening watch a rom com because
we like happy
endings.

…..

photo by Sasin Tipjai

Note: a week later the lab results showed no problems. Benign is a lovely word.

Brother O

 

Brother O

A charcoal grill, a keg on ice,
before a few friends who try to dress nice,
Brother O pronounces: “Husband and wife."  

Couples by the hundred he's sanctified
in back yards, city parks, under birches.
Rarely in churches.
These are joyous affairs with a simple touch.
"For people," he says, "who can't afford much."

His one request, it’s not too awful,
you must come to his kitchen
for a breakfast of waffles.
With maple syrup he’ll amuse you:

“Joseph was a carpenter,
so Jesus his son grew up in that culture.
Do you ever wonder what Jesus would say
when He hit his thumb with a hammer?”

The ceremony he performs for free.
The answer: love. You’ll see.

…..

From my book Foggy Dog.
First published in Uppagus
Jeep photo by Dorothy Duncan