The Next Block Down

Western Gulls sit in a line on the pitched roof of the old neighborhood temple waiting for the demented woman two houses east to throw bread out her broken dining room window with glee.

Crows in bare trees, on wires carefully avoid the opportunity for entanglement a pair of tied together shoes thrown up there by the gamer college boys across the street presents.

Somebody’s father who can’t smoke inside the restored tinderbox historic apartments sweeps the sidewalk with ferocious intensity that shows up the grounded crabapples next door.

Pink buds strain south towards the low winter light on the unruly camellia bush, ignore battered bikes, abandoned art projects in the messy yard it is trying to grow out of.

Serene, the perfectly painted in olive with two-color accents well-heeled four-plex on the corner shows her restoration with clean dignity as the roots of the huge mimosa tree facing her make their forceful way to China.

Quietly, the low slung house full of light, first library in the neighborhood, endures benign neglect from the active young couple who paid way too much for her at the very top of the market.

The heart of this small world resides in the proud yellow house built next to the temple for a non-Jewish caretaker who could then do maintenance on the Sabbath. Not showing her age to strangers she reigns…

Watching over us with good will and humor she would comment to anyone who knew to ask that life is about enjoying every moment we have and accepting loss with cheerful well-groomed grace.

Creative Theft

The other night Andrew and I were talking on the phone, he'd had a good day, his energy was up and he asked me about what was going on with my poetry. (Not much because I am spending rather a big chunk of time taking care of him but...)

I told him I was entertaining an idea about The Dry Tortugas because I had heard an interview with a bird guy (Scott Weidensaul) taking about his book Return to Wild America and a trip he took to The Dry Tortugas (off the coast of Florida). It had for a long time one freshwater fountain in Fort Jefferson where weak storm battered migratory birds had learned to stop to drink, the only fresh water for many many miles. The fountain was destroyed by a hurricane in the late nineties but for a span of numerous generations of birds it was a haven.

Not being able to sleep that night, he stayed up late doing research and wrote this little piece. I particularly love the last line.

Dry Tortugas

A likely place to search for buried treasure...
or last respite for swindlers and their banks...
the 'floating world' of money, drugs and leisure
(first tortoise-slow, then yet so crazedly)
now slides, next claws, then burrows in her flanks.
The fortress, unremembered, echoes words
like 'sanctuary', 'prison', 'pardon', 'free'.
And 'Mercy!'...on the tongues of many birds.

Taking Up the Challenge

If you are interested in poetry and live in the States, you know by now that the Poetry Foundation is throwing money at Public Broadcasting to get them to talk about and promote poetry.

One of the newest attempts can found here at Poetry Challenge to C.K. Williams.

I decided I was going to try my hand at this before I realized that they are actually asking for submissions…

Little do they know, poor fools with their ears full of beautiful music what they are getting themselves into.

As of this writing the piece that Mr. Williams will be tasked to write about has not been chosen, so I just picked the one I liked best for this project today and wrote…

After Maurice Ravel’s String Quartet in F Major - 2nd Movement

Any Given Moment

The work prepares you for it.
Ink stick and grinding stone,
brush—wolf hair, big cloud,
gut strings and fish bones.

Plucked. The dappled corridor,
breezeway, a girl in brocade,
letter drops, she turns into a half
swooping swoon, made, then gathers,

a swoosh. High melancholy calls,
tiptoes—celestial Spanish oak.
A clock ticks, a teapot sits,
the room's been abandoned.

Swallows weave an intricate form.
A child laughing pretends she is a cat.

Words for Cup and Water

Stepping through the dream wall
President Lincoln cradles his cat named Bob.

Droplets of rain shine on the Hemlock tip, which
reached my bedroom window just this year.

Old beveled mirrors still shimmer
no matter what they reflect,
drugstore, library, bookshop.

All carry magazines, hopes and dreams
one long loop running down,
streamlets in the mist.

I make a nest with my hands and
try to capture the mood of the mountain.

The President says, “Don’t bother,
we have work to do.”

Instead, Bob washes, framed by evening light.
We all pause for a moment,

watch a female white-rumped Harrier glide
golden over marshy fields opening

before our eyes. Sleeves rolled up,
possibilities begin to appear nearby.

Raptor Rapture

Still two weeks after taking this picture of the immature Peregrine Falcon 30 feet up in a tree two blocks from my place I am infatuated with his owl like fluff and handsome predatory good looks.

We made a new video today. I don't know why I wanted to read this older poem, Time To Go. It does show off some lovely roses from my sister's garden.