Poetry

in the car
driving from the shore into the city
from the bedroom to the courtroom
from a day in which I had not
put on one piece of clothing,
not a sock or a towel,
a day in which the snowy fields and salted marsh
were in my soul and in my nostrils constantly
to a day where I am wearing a suit
stiff shoes
matching knee-high socks
and bearing two ties
having not decided
what costume
best fits my fancy.

the roads are clear
the traffic light
snow covers the ground
and few other people
have arrived at the notion
that getting up
to put on a costume
and drive into any city
is such a good idea
at any time.

brt (c) 2007

1.
You long to know what you will do
With the rest of your life
with the finite time left.
You want to be brutally honest
And brave.
You also know you have but one death
And choosing your fate has appeal.
2.
The journey begins with a vision of deeper discoveries
Of walking in beauty,
Which may be done
 pretty much anywhere. 
Although it is important to remember
that walking in beauty 
is different than talking
of walking in beauty.
3.
All journeys begin
with an intention
Some also with a fatal execution
your partner leaving, 
you leaving,
ending, separating,
each declaring the joint venture over
she needing to be by herself
the woman who chose work over time with you
a perfectly rational choice
except for a person who says
Love is the most important thing
That you are her true love
And deeply matter.
But oaths lose
And pledges lose
And you are a different you than the one she wanted
Though she will care for your dog while you’re away
As your dog will care for her
Each on their own spiritual journey.
Maybe it will be her dog.
4.
Near the beginning of the voyage
A woman appears
Out of thin air
Divine and ethereal
A woman slumbering
Like Briar Rose
Under the same spell for decades
The same weight
The same burdens 
Now awakened
A sleeping beauty
Stretching
Reaching out
unencumbered by earthly constraints
Sans job, home, or husband
With but one son, one dog, two grandchildren, and three cats
One of whom is dying
She well knows the special role she plays in their lives
And leaves them
all of them
for you.
Do not ask how her son sees all that.
At least the kids still talk with her.
5.
You and she fill her van to the gunnels with supplies
To bring to the Standing Rock Sioux,
To the Water Protectors in North Dakota
Cannonball North Dakota: One rundown store and a gas pump
Blankets, winter clothing, propane, wood, a wood splitting maul,
an axe, sleeping bags, tents, a stove, a tarp,
bolt cutters, hand and foot warmers, earplugs.
There is not enough room left under the van’s roof
to slide in one thin sheet of paper.
6.
They are housed and hosted
Succored on their journey across the continent.
Across mountains and sacred rivers
by friends who are happy to serve
new and old friends
friends who live in castles above olden rivers
people who live in apple orchards, in cities,
with children here and children on the way,
with shared custody arrangements
in rooms belonging to eight year old and ten year old boys
rooms filed with team jerseys, photographs, hats, trophies,
gloves for four different sports.
7.
In Minneapolis he goes into some form of skin shedding
Says he is transitioning.
Vaporous.
Dizzy.
Nauseous.
As if overcome
Does not eat.
People think he looks sickly
They feel concern for
the farting old man
who says he has six years to live.
Who says he is not going into any nursing home
Who says he is not hanging around
If he can’t toilet himself.
8.
They convince him they are frightened for him
They convince him to be seen in Urgent Care
To have x-rays, ultrasounds, and blood tests
The doctors and labs find nothing wrong w him,
Other than a depression at the lower end of his left lung,
something he’s not sure he needed to know.
He tells the doctor he is shedding his skin.
At least one of them believes him.
9.
They visit the Sioux at Pine Ridge and Standing Rock
Sioux fighting for 500 years to remain Sioux
Still fighting
Proud, determined
Reverent, persistent
Worshippers of ancestors
Of Mother Earth
Her soil, plants,
her air and waters
Of the four leggeds
and the beings that fly.
They are sure we are all related
That people are Earth protectors
The Earth our garden and well.
10.
There is Oregon
All of California
Encampment at Oak Flat
The police in Oklahoma
Lobbying Congress
The humorous truth
That they travel together
For 18 thousand miles
For 18 weeks
And break up 18 times.
And then no more.

Before I leave for SE Asia
I ask Beau to wait until my return
before leaving this Earth
Though we also say our goodbyes.
Then, a week before my return
My ex-wife calls to say
She’s not sure Beau will make it
And while I am flying home
The always happy,
always kind and affectionate,
highest jumper in his class,
the fleet of foot gentleman
who understood far more than I
of love and sticks
our Beau takes his last breath.

He looks palsied in death
Eyes opened
Lips parted
His fur as soft and golden to the touch
As it has ever been
Legs stretched out
In the way he would love to do
I see him shaking with pleasure.
Wrapped in a sheet
buried in the yard
between two cedar trees
with some dog food
a seashell from the Indian Ocean
His collar and tags still on him
And a piece of the rare candy
He’d sometimes delight in the sugary first rush of
Licking his lips
then grimacing with disdain
for the bitter aftertaste.
Llife’s like this I think
as we cover him with earth
a stone with his name on it
painted with his favorite red nail polish
a libation of red wine
sandalwood incense burning
two hawks on a thermal high in the sky
circling over Beau’s buried body
in honor of their fallen brother.
He was such a good dog.

Ladle is asked
How it maintains such a good attitude
When its ability to reach into the abundance of life
Is so dependent upon the agency of others
It’s just what keeps happening to me, ladle says,
I’m always being utilized
Asked to dip into these wonderful substances
Get filled to overflowing
Lifted up, even tilted
I love being tilted and used
Love serving my masters and my purpose
Why even in my states of rest
I am happy being ladle,
Knowing I will be used again,
Will feel vast pleasure again,
When you are a ladle
Someone always comes around
Saying, “I need a ladle.”
Nobody’s going to use you as a hammer
When you’re a ladle
And you can trust you’ll be put to good use.
Even if you’re a malformed ladle
If you’ve been bent or twisted
Or rendered less perfect in shape
You will be used,
Although perhaps less frequently,
Unless you’re the only ladle around,
Which isn’t a bad thing,
But can raise serious doubts
About whether it is you they love.
But if you maintain a desire to be of use
You will be used
That’s all I can tell you
Sometimes deformations
Are what make you attractive
Show you’ve been of long and steady service
Draw to you the ones you need
Who lift you up
Dip you in
Wash you
Use you, and leave you
spent and cleansed.

The beach plums

Enjoy the dunes

High winds

Blowing sands

Salt

The company of poison ivy

And everyone who uses them

Native American

Pilgrim

Cape Codder

Tourist.

The plums flourish on lands

First purchased from sachems

Who never owned them –

Not a tree or a dune –

For four coats

Three axes

A day’s plowing with a team of oxen.

Land that has seen grazing

And whaling

Fishing and fencing

Bogs and berries.

Land that remembers the Wampanoag

Here for but three thousand years

As do we who fill our pails

Boil the plums

Separate seed from fruit

Squeeze the beach plum flesh

Extract its essence

As we squeeze each other

The sweet juices we cook

In anaerobic jars

To make the jam

To smell the sweetness

The sweat

The sour

The desirable

To lick our fingers

And in memory

To preserve it all.

In further preparation for my grand exit
I dispose of material things
That once had value to me
And still do
A seventy-year-old
4 x 7 weathered fake-leather
Zippered autograph book
From public school 95
In the Bronx
An archeological time capsule
From the first half
Of the last century
Having survived wars, moves, and fires
Filled with empty limerick poems
from prepubescent classmates
comprised of red rose and blue violet couplets
And the hearty toast from my eighth grade English teacher,
Who like my mother thought
I had the potential to better conjugate verbs if only I paid attention.

I dispose now of high school trivia:
A senior pin.
The 1958 yearbook.
It is inconceivable anyone might care about this detritus
Rather it is in the mind
Where anything of substance remains
and there is no need to throw any of that away
As if one could.
I wrote my first poem
On assignment in freshman English
And I know the words to that poem verbatim
Sixty-eight years later
Worth exactly nothing o’er these decades
Except to me.
That I now throw into the fire. 

I cast away a trove of my uncle’s World War II bounty

Military orders handwritten on parchment

Photographs of shamed collaborator women

  being paraded naked down the screaming streets

Next to letters of commendation

Nazi medals

Sewing kits. Bootie.

Jingoism and heroism on display.

With old correspondence

And letters from abroad.

He was in the psychological warfare unit,

Aide and driver to the Unit Commander.

I so admired the smell of his shaving cream

And cigarette smoke

mixed with the aroma of his morning

ablutions and eliminations

There

Next to the jeep

With the beautiful French women

Never married

Nor producer of offspring.

Who care that he served with valor

This unknown soldier

Absolutely anonymous

To all but me and a few cousins

One who turned a starter postage stamp collection

Into books upon books filled with cancelled postage stamps

Worth exactly nothing these decades later

Except to me

That I now throw into the fire.

Whispering among the gods
Sounds like the buzzing of a beehive,
like tides,
like Bach.
There is an urgency to godly whispering
To the call to the colors
To the nectar.

Whispering with the gods
I noticed the god within me
there was something jarring in the recognition
and I sought my own meanings
for surely I cannot be a god
can I?

After news of the tragedy arrived
The Tibetan prayer flags waved in the breeze
As they always do
And a hummingbird came to hover
Inches from my face
Reminding me – as if I needed further evidence –
of the need to prepare
for the long journey
by feeding on the sweetness of life
whenever and wherever we can,
always aware,
like the hummingbird,
that we are mere hours from starvation or death,
grateful we can store enough energy  
to respond when our houses need cleaning
and when it is time to move on.
The fact is that doors have closed,
and will close.
The question is,
where will we find the strength
to explore the doors now opened.