The Next Line

luminous

    but the light lends 

    me a kind of delicacy,

    the morning quiet

    a quotidian peace.

    I'm only flesh

    open to interpretation.

    When I hear the washer

    end its spin cycle

    I'm done ruminating,

    but I turn, pause to watch

    a towhee pluck

    a fat caterpillar 

    from the basil.

    I'm grateful 

    for the dull

    brown bird eating

    that bright green

    alive, making good

    use of time and shadow.

    It's hard to see now,

    any light without this dark. 

 

Survival Anniversary

 

 OOne October I was dying—there were birds in the garden then; 

 there are birds in the garden now; the sense of October, too: the same.

 There is no grief in the sycamore, no gratitude in the remaining light;

 there is the bittersweetness of before, the plain word of survival after—

 Now I am like the sycamore: this October is all Octobers:

 it will sit amidst its pasts, each a chrysanthemum petal

 in a bloom of years neatly arranged: I am a whole I can hold:

 each memory or desire, poinant and complete—

 I am here to have them, Octobers in continuence:

 the new leaf tip emerges, then in a deepening green it fades, 

 falls for the new leaf coming, which in richness also fades.

 So much change in the light, so much I can endure;

 time’s stillness holds me now, and it holds me so lightly, 

 grace in every shifting moment, in all the moments that remain.

 

Contraction

 

 

The dragonfly has crimson eyes―

the dragonfly, monochrome crimson.

 

[I gaze at the garden and wait,]

 

Gold feathers swirl in the birdbath―

feathers float in the birdbath, delicate yellow.

 

[wait without the desire to understand:]

 

A silver-white strand of web drifts by in sourceless grace―

a drifting strand of web briefly shines silver-white.

 

[between me and the garden: the fullness of space and light―]

 

 

My grip slips as my eyes watch the fall without failing―

with unfailing eyes I see it fall from my grasp.

 

[the eye supplies what’s left out, what’s lost:]

 

This is an account of a kind of peace,

 

[thousands of leaves, thousands more.]

 

of when I can feel the breath taken,

of when I am no longer waiting, or no longer perceive I am.

 

[I’m.]

Burnt Toyons, Malibu

 

 

The burnt branch remembers the shape of the flame.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Me or the Valley Carpenter Bee

                                            by Bobbie Jo Allen

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mind awakens to the sudden sight of                                                                                A before-unknown bright thing: it hovers,

 

the bee; it signified at once, beauteous—                             a(s)                                   plump with pollen, bold againt the rosemary,

 

it shook off the fog of experience, shining                                                                      shining primeval fuzz of a whole-body halo,

 

the color of warm honey: disappearance of sense             into                                    a creature immersed in its own loveliness; so

 

enters—so exits thought—becoming                                                                                strange: green eyes gold wings gold body—

 

a new idiom; I identify with                                                                                               a gold strangeness—unalighting—

 

this first-seen thing—it transformes me,                         to/as                                      a topaz foiled in rich green rosemary—

 

a heart-harmonic sounding (so silently)—                                                                      a rare chance sighting—I am then

 

understanding I am not here                                                                                              in silence seeking small blue blossoms,

 

and in that the sense of disappearance                         in/to                                           a beauty I can’t understand, bridging me into

 

the object only as bright as the sun                                  -                                                light only as bright as the object it strikes.

 

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

    Everyday Darkness

                                    by Bobbie Jo Allen

 

 

 

 

 

Morning chiaroscuro as the midsummer sun

    streaks through tree leaves, just so

    entering the window, just so. The glow

    of the pothos leaf’s like a lamp

    and I’m entranced--

    a neon green beacon. When shall we three

    meet again, light leaf and me. . .

I can watch the manifested seconds

tick by as an edge of shadow,

and it begins its eclipse,

and then I get that

I’m moving so swiftly through space

it only seems like stillness,

get that I won’t know the moment

until it arrives or once it’s gone.

So I chase it with my open hand,

find flesh is too thick to be luminous

but the light lends

me a kind of delicacy,

the morning quiet a kind of quotidian peace.

I’m only dense flesh after all,

and open to interpretation.

When I hear the washer end its spin cycle

I’m done ruminating, but turn

to watch a towhee pluck a fat caterpillar

out of the basil. I’m grateful for the dull

brown bird eating that bright green alive,

making good use of time and shadow,

realize it’s hard to imagine now,

any light without this dark.

 

Beginnings and Endings

 

The tight chest, the grief settling in amidst the new growth.

(Equal Night)

 

 

 

Listening, tracing the sound water moving over rock, sliding over rock,

the granite bone of the mountain, and moving swiftest where it finds no resistance,

the surrounding sound suggesting other sounds, intimate voices in the distance,

instruments playing nothing all at once, so meaningless is the sound you forgot

where the listening started, so losing who the listener is, what is you-ending

 

 

or river-begins, as the water, held in the double vision of introspection

and awareness, achieves such clarity it is only perceived in reflection,

in movement so perfect it seems like stillness, the sound of water resonating

in the bright new autumn air, the light poised in an equinox of thought and action,

the mind moving to where it is freest to flow, since it has no stone to question it,

no intention to trouble its illusions, no time to wait for or turn to seek.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Listening for the Reader

 

I begin with the lower ranges of the  human voice,

the constant acoustics of speech, spectro-temporally 

speaking: Time and air making words—Magic: The een of a 

hinge or iss of a gust forming meanings lost even to 

those who know the language, yet spark the body, the senses: 

Muscles releasing the fire of laughter—or tears, even! 

Distance no matter, distinctions understood. These are words.

 

Do you hear it? Without you, no poem; but I can’t wait for

your understanding, can’t stand still for your Apprehension;

must manifest the line in absence, must mold constantly

the connotation and gently open the meaning of 

the word—Still, you will complete the Event, you will see, speak

(spacio-temporally, so to speak) the excellent 

metaphor for common experience: It’s a crowded 

 

room. Words I do not know; you making the wonderful sound.

 

Emotion | Instinct

 

 

The blue-black form of the crow in flight

hot against the grey-white July sky:

A grammar, of sorts: Perceiving its distinc-

[“T”]ness, yes; but also wondering: Does it 

know wonder? It flips and drops in 

the heat wave’s updrafts—with, and/

or against, the wind: That’s like a laugh, 

distinctly seems shaped like an ecstasy 

in a pure act—pure action—“in-stinct”—

Its shape against: also a bar or barrier,

a defining thing; each name, a carrier.