The locusts were already there.
Landscapes in Stone (Paisajes en Piedra).
Time in the Rocks (Tiempo en las piedras).
An Eocene Landscape.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Remember this.
Remember this
The clicking, intermittent,
of the electric heater,
the ringing of wind-chimes on the porch,
that have been ringing for days now,
like cowbells rung frantically over the dark plains.
Our house used to sit on the edge of town,
blank prairie, high-desert pressing in,
Here, I feel the wind outside,
through the steam of bath-water on the inside pane,
The window has frosted over, the streetlight shines like a star,
I am happy and round in candlelight,
unsure of the future,
set on a precipice, like an unknowing child.
(reading Colette, drinking rose cava, 3 candles lit (lux perpetua…)
I hear the wind chimes shrieking from my warm white single bed.
The clicking, intermittent,
of the electric heater,
the ringing of wind-chimes on the porch,
that have been ringing for days now,
like cowbells rung frantically over the dark plains.
Our house used to sit on the edge of town,
blank prairie, high-desert pressing in,
Here, I feel the wind outside,
through the steam of bath-water on the inside pane,
The window has frosted over, the streetlight shines like a star,
I am happy and round in candlelight,
unsure of the future,
set on a precipice, like an unknowing child.
(reading Colette, drinking rose cava, 3 candles lit (lux perpetua…)
I hear the wind chimes shrieking from my warm white single bed.
Friday, December 4, 2009
I think this was the hawk that chase left on our doorstep as a strange homecoming present. He found it on the side of the highway, where it had maybe fallen from the electrical wires overhead. He had been out jogging, and was kind enough to explain the gift, before I stuck my head, full, into the black plastic bag. Enterprising Sam figured out a way to remove the beautiful wings, and hung them, framed on our wall. He left the body of the bird in the field next to our house. I iwsh he could find the poem he wrote about the hawk, because it was beautiful, and I remember seeing the color gold when I read it. spring, 2009, marfa, tx
Monday, September 14, 2009
brine
1.
memories are cobblestones;
like teeth in the earth.
they come at us from four sides of consciousness:
as the embedded thing in mud,
as the adobe bricks steaming in the rain,
as the smoke from the distant storm,
as the sour yellow smell of wet chamisa rises from the plain.
2.
adobe houses have a tendency to cluster themselves together wetly in storms.
the lashes of rain darken even the red dust under trucks and rusted car shells.
iron and creosote hang heavy in the air as
metallic wet steel wool
coagulates inside the larger particles of storm wind,
nestled into its made nest.
wet brine of a West Texas afternoon,
breath of the backyard through the open window, reading quietly,
chicken stock bubbling on the stove.
memories are cobblestones;
like teeth in the earth.
they come at us from four sides of consciousness:
as the embedded thing in mud,
as the adobe bricks steaming in the rain,
as the smoke from the distant storm,
as the sour yellow smell of wet chamisa rises from the plain.
2.
adobe houses have a tendency to cluster themselves together wetly in storms.
the lashes of rain darken even the red dust under trucks and rusted car shells.
iron and creosote hang heavy in the air as
metallic wet steel wool
coagulates inside the larger particles of storm wind,
nestled into its made nest.
wet brine of a West Texas afternoon,
breath of the backyard through the open window, reading quietly,
chicken stock bubbling on the stove.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Friday, June 26, 2009
prism 2
crossed green blades curl under
the soaped fabric of morning air:
the traced green lace
of evergreen branches hangs down.
sirens and train whistles break
the washed swath of sideways wind,
as the round bells of birdcalls
ring silver in the lemon-colored air.
(i am weary today), content to
watch the world as fractured slivers of yellow and green light:
splintered into a charcoal geometry of off-square lit windows, wire fence rungs,
and the small-mesh kaleidescope of an open screen door.
the soaped fabric of morning air:
the traced green lace
of evergreen branches hangs down.
sirens and train whistles break
the washed swath of sideways wind,
as the round bells of birdcalls
ring silver in the lemon-colored air.
(i am weary today), content to
watch the world as fractured slivers of yellow and green light:
splintered into a charcoal geometry of off-square lit windows, wire fence rungs,
and the small-mesh kaleidescope of an open screen door.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Rainstorm
It rained last night-- suddenly and full of lightning sparks.
The backyard was lit up in torrential, tropical wedges.
There was an unnatural greenness to this scene, (shreds of dreams still hanging over my eyelids).
When we sleep down here, it is with wildness over our heads;
a windscreen separates
out from in with a loose and quiet flapping,
a dark sound barely heard in our sleep.
Our house is surrounded by trees and bushes on all sides, a sort of white shell amongst arid desert dirt.
By day you might call the backyard a wasteland of hot weeded space.
At night the smells and sounds become tropical and green.
Combine the tropical with the local.
Texas vocabularies of snakes and desert willows, wrapped
in the lush greenness of Bahian cacao groves—life on a tropical plantation has always seemed ideal to me.
Sleeping through the hottest part of the day,
breakfast in an aerie cliff room of warm coffee (milk, fruit, porridge),
dollhouse rooms, shaded courtyards, vines of clematis and bougainvilla, distant calls of birds reaching over a tropical canopy.
Last night the lightning storm fell on us unexpectedly, with brilliant flashes and cracks of thunder. In my half-sleep dreamstate I was happiest to drift between sensations—
the smell of rain,
the sound of it hitting the dry dirt like small stones,
the sound of it running hard against the house, and
the blank, black softness of ruffled sleep.
The lightning called a ridged wakefulness out of the dark like a quiet mushroom uncovered. My night musings had wrapped around themselves, ends firing blankly like lit fuses (cut wires), tentacles absorbed in each other.
Simultaneous appreciation of opposites brings out the best in each—from a bare nest of bunched blankets, (my childhood front porch perch), grew an understanding of the thunderstorms that rolled in like fields of wet gray wool (sparking loudly) over vast front plains.
The backyard was lit up in torrential, tropical wedges.
There was an unnatural greenness to this scene, (shreds of dreams still hanging over my eyelids).
When we sleep down here, it is with wildness over our heads;
a windscreen separates
out from in with a loose and quiet flapping,
a dark sound barely heard in our sleep.
Our house is surrounded by trees and bushes on all sides, a sort of white shell amongst arid desert dirt.
By day you might call the backyard a wasteland of hot weeded space.
At night the smells and sounds become tropical and green.
Combine the tropical with the local.
Texas vocabularies of snakes and desert willows, wrapped
in the lush greenness of Bahian cacao groves—life on a tropical plantation has always seemed ideal to me.
Sleeping through the hottest part of the day,
breakfast in an aerie cliff room of warm coffee (milk, fruit, porridge),
dollhouse rooms, shaded courtyards, vines of clematis and bougainvilla, distant calls of birds reaching over a tropical canopy.
Last night the lightning storm fell on us unexpectedly, with brilliant flashes and cracks of thunder. In my half-sleep dreamstate I was happiest to drift between sensations—
the smell of rain,
the sound of it hitting the dry dirt like small stones,
the sound of it running hard against the house, and
the blank, black softness of ruffled sleep.
The lightning called a ridged wakefulness out of the dark like a quiet mushroom uncovered. My night musings had wrapped around themselves, ends firing blankly like lit fuses (cut wires), tentacles absorbed in each other.
Simultaneous appreciation of opposites brings out the best in each—from a bare nest of bunched blankets, (my childhood front porch perch), grew an understanding of the thunderstorms that rolled in like fields of wet gray wool (sparking loudly) over vast front plains.
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