Grade Book

This is the end
I forget
so I can do it again
next term.

Faces
look out at me
from the little
boxes I put them in:
A, B, C, D, F,
Incomplete.

We’re all sad
even the A’s –
there should be
more to it.

I close the boxes lightly,
leave room to breathe.

Sunset, Fire, Mountain, Rain

 

Mogollon Baldy, March 2005

 

Cloud-filled gulleys.
A killing ground– flame
smoke, steam — so

steep the fire crews
let this one burn.
Smells like incense

from ten miles away
looks like Shangri-la,
mind-road to Buddha-land

sunset pouring straight
into those clouds
then straight back out.

The Cardboard Box

for William Stafford

Where is the cardboard box
William Stafford used for a desk
when he sat on the sofa
before anyone else was awake
and wrote poems?

What is it holding now,
ten years after his death,
when his son finally published
the last of them?

Happier holding paint cans
than poems, I bet,
as Buddha Bill was happier
in working clothes than standing
in the expert’s spot.

That divine discomfort
marked you out, Bill,
the sign you knew
poetry and life
and the difference between them.

Time as a Pickup Truck on a Country Road

Minutes,
like dogs,
thrill
to the word
GO

and a whole lifetime
flapping ears and tongues

rattles past.

……………………………………………………………………………….
first published in Expelling Trelnitz, TJMF, 2007
…………………………………………………………………………….

Breathing Lesons: an American History

Slightly oxygen deprived,
we waited for Jesus
beneath reefs of smoke from the mills.

He never did show
so we lit up a jay
and passed it around –
righteous weed.

Then the mills
fell to shadow
and stores downtown
caught fire for insurance.

A little breathing space
for the town fathers.

We slid around
in air made thick
with potatochip grease,

service industries
our salvation,
the Gospel According
to Reagan.

Finally we lit out

for the exurbs

and except for
barbecue smoke

and lawn chemicals,

 

why, a man can breathe
right nicely out here
Ma’am.