WORTH OF A MAN
In my father’s mind
the worth of any man
was tied hand and foot to his work
The day he retired
to leave his ranch and his work
he was felled by a massive stroke
Every time I make enough money to quit
I hurry to lose it as fast as I can
And go right back to work to make it again
remembering what I learned from this man
SAYINGS FROM OLD RANCH KITCHEN
“Clean off your plate
there are starving people in China”
“Take the last food from the bowls
we’ll have a nice day tomorrow”
I never put it together this way
but the people in China
must have always had a nice day
A BOAT CALLED TRUTH
We have known and loved each other
deeply all these years
Each one or both always honouring some
relationship with someone else
So we never quite say it
and we never quite do it
One sunny day in Santa Barbara harbour
we see the name “TRUTH” on a pretty boat
We take each other’s pictures by the stern
but we never get on the boat
KING MIDAS
King Midas wrote poems
in the finest of gold
and gave them to friends
or so I am told
Barred as he was
from touching in any
ordinary way
LULLABY TO POLARITY
The more the more you are woman
the more I am man
The more you rest soft in my arms
the stronger they become
The more the more I am man
the more you are woman
The more the strength
in the shape of the spoon
The more the more even in sleep
you curl up and melt
into sugar and good medicine
BIBLICAL
I would like to know you biblically
With all the power and passion
of the old testament
All the love and forgiveness
of the new
ANNA
Could a drop of blood
from the pen of Anna Akhmatova
enter my blood
that I might write with a deeper red
A husband falls to the firing squad
a son in prison for no greater crime
than carrying his father’s name
Seventeen months at Leningrad prison
she waits in line each day for word of life
mid screams of those who learn of death
She has been a poet for thirty years and more
woman in line asks, “can you describe this”
she becomes a poet now
EMILY
Again it is two a.m.
and I am Emily Dickinson
Deep in my books and solitude
Answering the small great questions
How am I
What kind of day has it been
Notes from a shut-ins bed
to friends a hundred years dead
LAKE LOUISE TO JASPER
Poet struck dumb
by the folly of throwing
a word against a mountain
CALIFORNIA HWY #1
Pacific coasts by