The Tenth Muse

I've never been a muse
In a past life or lucid dream,
Telling men how to sing
With suggested inspiration
And filling body with longing and pursuant strength.
Goddesses aren't real women after all,
Little boys make up all myth
With female characters in static place.
Hesta of the hearth,
Stoking fire for the consortium of gods.
Moon a woman, borrowing Helios' pure power-
Silver is the colour of reflected gold.
The jealous wife Hera,
Dangerous beauty with a dangerous hand
Watching Husband make victories in secret.
But the nine had their arts
They thought it was sacred possession
Of treasure they gave to men
To make them more like women and less beasts,
Through dreams and visions collected
In scribed bibles
Filling shelves of humble homes.
Humble with women at the fire's side,
In beds working for men and children
Looking to prayer for assurance
And the moon for a fellow heart
In a world that muses control in stealth;
Forgoing glory
With the mask of man.

Clematis

A vine wraps

     Around twisted metal, chain-

Living and naked

     It grows.
Up to heaven- go!

     Never minding roots or seed,

Bloom to die

     Alone,

Wrapped in blankets

     Too tight to peel

Away from skin, bone.

     But go, grow.

No death for us,

     No chains of rust.

You’re a landscape and a miracle

     Not made for decay.

There’s snow, I see

     And you, bareboned

Stand out in dull humility,

     Nude and modest.

You do, you know-

     Embrace dying, as

Cold roots and clinging tendrils

     Grasp  inevitability.

Oh, heaven!

     Beyond green cathedrals,

Beyond flapping angels that nest
     In hidden spires.
Reach, strain,
     Pull me with you so I feel
The pain of living.
     Still we stand in earth
'Til safely, soundly in

     Lullaby to death, we part.

Recipe

Good morning:
-roll over
-he's warm
-your arms are there
-he fits

Good meal:
-at home
-make sure the veggies are fresh
-the meat is fresh
-souls are full and hungry
-clean plates

Goodnight:
-pretend to go to bed
-lie close
-make love
-smile

A Place

            They’re tearing down the hill by building it up- backhoe the road and foundation, test the well, pour the gravel.  Mountains of discarded soil mark the edges of a long scar covered by the clean gauze of winter. When I walk over the scabbed, sloping earth, I feel like a parasite, expecting the sudden slap of my unwelcome host to rebuke me.

            The hill never made me feel this way before. Half a mile and up the ridge was a circle of short grass, mowed in the middle of a two-foot high field of “weeds”. That six acre field was home of the meadow voles I tracked in winter, the nesting grounds of the red-winged blackbirds, and was filled with the spit bugs who were so much fun to expose, tiny and green and naked.

            Once, in the middle of a rainstorm, I met a fawn who was just as wet as I was. I knelt beside her, the grass shielding both of us from view. Slowly I pet the soft baby fur on her forehead, her nervous eyes fixed on my arm. After she left me, I found a swallowtail butterfly, hanging underneath a blade of grass to shield its delicate wings from plummeting raindrops.

            In the circle at the top of the hill, with trees on two sides, you can see the blindingly bright ski slope, the hops farm down the road to the south, the next door neighbor training his prize-winning barrel-racing quarter horses. Small fallow deer always dot the backyard hillside next to the horse corral, surrounded by a tall metal fence and freedom. If I walk up the hill during the day, my dog anxiously waits underneath the locust tree at the bottom of the trail, hoping I come back home soon.

            But the hill is most alive at night. When the horses and dogs are asleep, the field and woods simmer with energy. Owls are the strangest to hear- they’re only supposed to make appearances in movies. Wild deer make soft footsteps along the edge of the trail, the coyotes yelp and howl during every season, and the crickets never shut up in summertime.

            In the night, during the moon’s dream show, everything on earth swims and gives light in return with each undulation. The moon tenderly asks the gentle night breeze to cool feverish minds, if you go looking for escape when everyone else is sleeping. On the hill in that softness, you can believe all good ideas and dreams will come true, no matter what strange noises are coming from the woods. Moonlight in early summer… that was unpolluted.

            And now the moon doesn’t matter to me. Neither do the blackbirds and their grass perches, or the vole tunnels. I let myself imagine it will all be gone now, I am obsessed with the scar snaking up the hill, the pits and mountains that have replaced the mowed circle. It will still be there, alive, but that house will be grinning through the windows, daring the moon to give more light than its 60 watt bulbs. The furnace will know that no meadow mouse tunnel could be quite this cozy, and no blade of grass could be as rain-proof as the roof on this house. The hill won’t die, the moon won’t stop bathing the earth, and the snow won’t give up healing bruises. But that house will always be laughing at all of them. 

*Photos by Caleb C., dear brother*

Lost at Sea

Maybe fingertips brush messages
Lost in the sea
Drawn down by stronger hands

Bottles never make it
Only shipwrecks
Words drown in green glass air

Crabs harvest bone
Birds nest with hair
But hearts are lost at sea....
Shallow tide pools erupt from the ashes

All that's left of inner protestations
Certainty and verse hidden in the bow
Pointed at sharp rocks
Too sure for the lighthouse's warning

Mend in a Hurry

I need to get some of those calming vibrations

Those feel-good pills

A little piece of peace and quiet

In my head.

Cause the raindrops falling are hard and heavy

Speed like bullets through my hair

My scalp

My brain

Down down into my soul

Past the pulsing plodding heart muscle.

I can’t find relief from thoughts

Tiny bits of metal,

Foreign.

Can you?

Give me some of your meditation

Your secret to life’s honey

The gooey sweet breathing hole-filling

Plug from the drops,

The stones I make from scratch

That work their way to my toes.

Give me your instant fix

Your secret drink

Pour it deep

Fill it up.

Good people are hard to find, harder to keep...

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