Monthly Archives: August 2024

Oak Leaves

Posted on by
1
 
He gazed at oak leaves
   whose serrations recalled,
 
As a young child
   in Humboldt County,
 
He’d seen, in the back of
   a logger’s pickup,
 
A beat-up crosscut saw,
   rusty, splintered handles,
 
Unused for decades,
   but still displayed,
 
A sign saying
   he could if he had to,
 
That old ways persisted,
   stubborn as ancient oaks.
 

Glass

Posted on by
Reply
 
An image formed
   on the pebbled-glass shower door,
 
A pixilated pattern
   of brown, cream and rust,
 
Until she moved and spots coalesced
   into hair, breast, knee
 
Which morphed with each movement
   into scores of brief bodies,
 
Each a different screen,
   a chaotic movie of opaque beauty.
 

Rock

Posted on by
3
 
The boy, nine years old,
   walked down an alley,
   steep, dirt and weeds.
 
His toe caught a rock,
   round, palm-sized,
   and set it skittering;
 
…and, a miracle happened,
   he had a thought,
   an original idea.
 
The rock could be
   over a million years old,
   maybe a billion!
 
The past had been
   an unreachable grayness,
   far behind him,
 
Only the moment
   was of consequence,
   was of any utility.
 
Yet, now the past
   had slammed into him,
   bruising his foot,
 
While remaining unchanged,
   lying still in the sun
   a few yards away.
 
He picked it up,
   held it in his hand,
   held eons of the past,
 
And knew that when
   he no longer existed,
   and was long forgotten,
 
Indeed, when no one was left
   to kick a thing
   or have an idea at all,
 
This rock might still lie
   somewhere, unchanged,
   resting in sunlight.
 
He kept it the rest of his days,
   from time to time noticed it
   and remembered to think.
 

Doughnut

Posted on by
1
 
He sat outside at the table,
   reading the paper,
 
Glanced at a bird in the
   sun-splotched branches,
 
Then saw on his plate
   a doughnut, decorated,
 
Where none had been
   when he sat down.
               —
No one near him, nothing above,
   he seemed alone,
 
But knew it was not a miracle,
   by the silence;
 
Miracles are loud and brash,
   earthquakes and disco lights,
 
God wants to be noticed
   when violating physical law.
               —
He heard a wee giggle
   from the grass below;
 
Pushing back the tablecloth,
   he saw a shining face,
 
Crazy tussled hair, red
   as a Neanderthal’s,
 
Becrumbed grinning lips
   and chocolate cheeks.
               —
He ate the doughnut with coffee,
   and pondered a revelation,
 
That God is a secret, slithering arm
   of a young child.
 
She escaped from her cave and ran,
   crowing across the lawn,
 
Filled with certainty, and joyfully
   ready to save all mankind.