Heat Lightning

Heat Lightning

Lightning floods the towering thunderheads,
Cloud bursting
lavender through translucent vapor,
then brilliant
camera flash of un-obscured light,
Leaving spots before our eyes.

Is it a friction of ice and water?
unstable energy, electrons, ions?
We are unsure,
and guess at the science
between bolts.

They come in an instant,
spreading color
and uneven light, dull to brilliant,
from the eastern ridge
to the southwestern tree line,
All in the blink of our
startled, mystified eyes,
Leaving us
in star edged darkness.

There is no thunder,
The entire show is
Miles high
Counties away,
Too far from where we sit in the warm night air,
for even a faint rumble to reach us.

The evening is still,
but for loud, late summer crickets
and our lazy, quiet conversation,
Wondering.
"What makes the lightning?
"Why can't we hear it tonight?"
"Will the storm come?"
"Has that lightning hit the ground somewhere?"

Our questions stray from the clouds,
even as we continue to gaze
at the wonder of light.
"How can they deny global warming? "
"Did that marriage last only four months?"
"Are bears getting more aggressive?"
"Will the corn be eaten by raccoons?"

We can't know,
what causes
the violence of the storms,
of polarizing positions,
passions,
aggressions, or theft.

And our asking voices,
rise and are lost
before they reach
the high, lightning-brilliant
clouds,
or
anyone who can hear
and answer.

　

The Relativity of Conscience

The Relativity of Conscience

Sometimes
I wake in the middle of the night
The day's concerns
elbowing in
Too forceful to allow
sleep

Perhaps this happens
because there is no room 
in the daytime world
To slow down the action,
Re-work the outcome,
Say what I really want
or mean to say,

But here in the long
empty hours
Without tasks or distractions,
Only the sleeping cat at my feet
I can replay
The bills I haven't paid,
The meeting I was supposed to arrange, but haven't
The stupid argument with my neighbor,
The hurtful comment I let slip,
The visit I didn't make to a grieving friend,

Only in that dark, dream border
Can I sometimes,
put things right,
Though not always.

If I am truly fortunate,
I find the words, or
Decide on the path
that can bring me to resolution
in the light of day.
Then, I can fall unresisting,
down into deep,
unthinking
slumber.

Sometimes I can only
Change the replay in my mind.
In a waking dream, imagining
the might have been,
letting it carry me to
uneasy slumber,

I wonder
How do the men
Who caused financial ruin among thousands of families
through accounting games.
Who took the bribe for the
shoddy building that collapsed on school children,
Ordered the bombing of a residential neighborhood,
get back to sleep at night?

Do they build painstaking,
waking dreams of a better world?
or do they simply
Sleep untroubled
through someone else's shattered
night?

Waiting to Dance

Did any of us
Ever
go to a dance in junior high
and feel popular,
or sexy?

Who were
Those beautiful, girls
Who knew
how to put on make up,
had long, shining hair
and needed to wear a bra.

Were there really
gorgeous boys?
Tall,
or at least taller than the girls,
Athletic. Curly haired?
And which of them could rely on
a strong, deep voice that didn't crack
Just as he asked her to dance?

And who among us
Did not have pimples and anxiety?
Did have members of the opposite sex
Swarming around us like bees
In the apple orchard in May?

Ask any of us,
Honest now that those years are far behind,
And we will shake our heads.

"I was a fat, little boy.". He recalls
"the girls would see me, losing the race to choose partners,
And would scatter."

"I was taller than anyone else
At a dance." she said.
"my mother told me I was too tall to marry."

"I had thick, coke bottle bottom glasses" I said.
"and was called four eyes."

And all of us fell silent,
Remembering those awkward
Lonely moments
Which still
Haunt us in our late, middle age.
Still catch us,

Sitting,
Hiding, anxious,
Behind that same
polished mask
of happy self assurance
that all of us wore,

Small wonder we thought
that the others around us
were sexy, shining, and perfect
We all hid ourselves so well,

Even now,
When the music begins,
We are still convinced
that we are the only ones,
waiting
For the fat little boy with the kind smile,
the tall girl with the laughing eyes
To ask us to dance

On my 55th Birthday

On my 55th Birthday


How did years pass
in such quantity
with such stealth?

My memory
stretches behind me
like the sea shore,
The mist creeping silently
obscuring the moment
when I came out of the salt water
and began to walk along the arc.
A long narrow meeting
of packed sand and water
subject to shifting tides
and waves,

Voices mingle in the surf,
changed by the fine droplets of mist.
clear calls
from childhood out of sight,
muffled voices and creak of  oar locks
of boats that have left the shore
long ago.

The hard packed sand is littered
with stories, changed like driftwood,
honed, clean, smooth
Simplified
by the repeated waves of telling
and re-telling

Empty shells of past loves,
held to the ear
Roar their distant passion.

And millions of grains of sand,
people, places, cities, gardens
moments of kindness, warm hollows in which to rest
looking out at the sea, 
or cold, sharp grit of sorrow
and small griefs,

I walk the beach,
taking pleasure in the warm, rough sand,
the beautiful shapes of shell and wood,
the play of waves,

Now and then,
I scrape beach tar from my feet,
or spit out the sand which invades my picnic sandwich,
grating between my teeth.
Sometimes a rogue wave drenches me
from head to toe,

Mostly
I look ahead,
failing to notice the mist,
closing in behind,
and the uncannily long stretch
of sand on which I have left
tide-washed footprints.

The Tunes Between Dark and Dawn

Forest, a banjo player at last night's session told me about a player from Appalachia, one of the older fellows who explained the use of modal tunes.  It had to be a poem.

 

The Tunes Between Dark and Dawn

 

I have always loved

the modal tunes,

neither sunny, warm major,

nor cold, winter night minor,

bitter sweet, between

 

Notes climbing the scale, beginning in different places,

on the second or fifth or sixth step,

of the rough-hewn, uneven staircase of the scale.

twisting a melody

into some different pathway

to another land

A startling full step to a natural,

not the expected, predictable half.

 

The fiddler,

 taking the unexpected leap,

turning the awkward distance between notes

into something graceful,

haunting,

 

When I asked him what these tunes were for,

his face lit up with a smile.

 

"These were the tunes we played

Only 

in the hour before dawn,

between night and day.

When everything waits."

 

I picture a man

sitting in the door of a cabin,

with a candle, perhaps,

pale, tiny light among

ancient trees

and more ancient mountains.

He cradles a fiddle, wrapped carefully, like a child,

in cloth.

 

Before the day begins

of work, building, hunting, growing

crops or children, he sits

alone in candle light.

 

The cloth he unwraps tenderly

has kept away

the sullen drizzle of Scotland,

the salt water on the deck of a voyaging ship,

the damp heat of the southern mountain summer.

The wood of the fiddle, dark with generations of age,

the bow hair yellowed,

 

And then, the notes, touched by

Scotland, Africa,

and Cherokee voices

with their grace, and bitter sweet surprise

rise

to greet the morning star,

and then

the sun.

The Key

Jim helped me to figure it out.
　

Our high school janitor,
He was built like a fireplug.
Face
showing the rugged tracks
of fifty-odd years of booze
cigarettes
and casually arrogant treatment
at the hands of
high school students,
and any others who thought themselves
better educated,
dressed, or financed.

Jim liked to chat
about his days working in the toy factory
now long gone, abandoned
Complain of his back pain,
from moving desks, mopping floors,
hauling buckets,
Or comment with vigor and pith
on the rude habits of high school students,
boys and girls alike,
in bathroom use
and the odorous contents of their lockers.

　
Jim noticed who saw him
and who didn't,

There were those who demanded,
that he open the gym right now,
refill the paper towels, this instant,
Who looked
Somewhere beyond his stocky body,
Green coveralls
And mop bucket
To more important things
　

For those
Jim would make himself visible
by the simple magic of obstruction.
Surly, brief, un apologies
"No one said I could let you in."
"Have to finish this first."
"Don't have the key to the storage room on me."

But if they saw
his fatigue and hard work,
heard
his complaints and stories,
recognized
when he was busy and
needed a moment
to finish a floor
or put away a mop bucket.
Asked, even with a please,
acknowledged
with a thank you,
Jim would have the paper products,
the smile,
the key.

　
They could be trusted
to treat people
and property
right.
And for them,
Jim would open doors.

So when my date
Brusquely placed his order,
demanding rare meat,
extra vegetables, and
speed,
From the tired
smiling waitress
without the barest courtesy

Then
Turned back to me
Face transforming into a lover's smile,
Something in my heart
slipped away.
　

How could I love such a man,
to whom some people are not visible,
for whom Jim
Would not have produced the key
and opened the door.