The Last Paper

comes to me in
the hand of the last student
on campus.

Everybody else is gone.
I curse myself again
for working late
and being there when
the last page of this
paper spat out
of the printer and
began its dash from
dorm to office.

The birds are singing in
the trees in my head
and my head is in
the trees with the birds. 
Tired?  Did I say
tired?  Let me lie back
in my nest and
contemplate that.

Oh. 

Yes. 

The student
is standing there in
the birdsong with
his paper.

Grades due tomorrow.
Hundreds of numbers to add
and divide and add again.
If I make a mistake,
the paperwork will crawl
between offices for months.

The trees in the birds in
my head are singing Hosannah
to the summer, and yes
I guess I’ll take your late
paper but I’ll have to
knock a few points off
because, uhm.. . .

The sudent nods and flees.
The paper in my hand
wants to fly away, too.

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.

Go Hit That Tree

(for MA and all women of the West)

Her Stetson’s
half as wide
as she is tall.

Horses?
Got three.

Guns?
Since she
was a girl.

Elk?
When she
can get the license.

Martial Arts?
She names a school
I don’t know.

What color belt?
No belt.
Daddy just
said things like
Go hit that tree
till it doesn’t hurt.

The Hustings

All the varieties
of misery

parade across
the city

in colors of
glowing gas.

Wet
asphalt

storm
sewers

how many
shades

of black.

Out in
the hustings

stores
are blank

light in
houses

is steady
orange

or flickers
blue.

Nobody
parades anywhere

except
on the Fourth.

The Way It Happens

She kissed her prince

and he became a frog.

It amazed her how

many princes that happened to.

On a Forest Path

inspired by Amy Singer,
in memory of Timothy Treadwell

He sang to the bear
and the bear sat down
Plummpf! The forest moved.

It was a made-up song
on no scale
about the light
in the bear’s fur
and the light in the trees’ leaves.

The bear listened.
And did not eat him that day.