wayward

 

 

    the rain ceased,

a wayward wind in the trees

      has it fall again

the oarsman

 

verdant now, a forest

rises above the banks--
the oarsman

struggling upstream

 

 

 

wall of willows

she's found the gate
in the wall of willows --
a spare spring light

iris

one blue iris
and weeds aplenty
beneath the ornamental tree

funeral in spring

geese flying home
along the Willow River --
 quite late before we leave




a funeral in Spring --
Country Western on the radio,
melt water in the field




  just across the county line
a green giant greets us
standing on a hill




bare trees, blunt tops,
all wore down in the swollen river --
Le Traverse De Sioux

Night of the Rockets

fallen Doum palms
left lying in the sand
Night of the Rockets

mistaken

through the fog and the pine,
a glimpse of white birches --
mistaken for ghosts

manicured lawns

stinging nettles,
young maples like weeds -
the mystery behind
your manicured lawns


(and lest we forget ...)


Summer lawns
neat little houses
all in a row

Autumn Ginko: October 2010

leaf viewing
a black ribbon unwinds
on pace with the sun

















oak leaves tossed about
on a sudden wind --
that sense of falling
















cool steel
set deep in the rock
the current always constant




























all but in vain
lumbermen search for the key
a river made from trees




























something's forgotten
down those damp hollows --
in the glacier's garden


















stones and gravel
sheared right through --
the glacier asleep


















an idle contemplation
for the waters of Autumn --
Princess of the Falls




























memories, fleeting,
bear a lingering sweetness --
coolness in the pine















Interstate Park








.

east county line

east county line
a whitetail doe
becomes a tree

Agency Village

one by one
deer cross the highway, 
moon in every eye















medicine wheels--
through damp spring fog,
cairns of rough field stone

 frost on the window--
the day watcher's lookout
somewhere in the trees

Agency Village--
the eagle returns in daylight
  to inspect an old kill

hazy morning--
hungry sparrows in and out
an open door

lean times--
crows worrying
road kill

BIA 701--
country-western and native songs
through static on the radio

;;;;;;;

More Walnuts

the crowds all gone home
sleek crows forage
through bits of bright litter -
Dandelions








stinging nettles,
young maples like weeds -
the mystery behind
your manicured lawns









trumpet vines
burst through the tarmac -
bangers on the corner
argue on their iPhones







a horn blows in traffic
the texture of twine -
high summer sun bakes
the brick wall








a dusty-red wren
perched on a pail -
heat shimmer blurring
the hot-tar roof









a musty smell from limestone
bits of broken glass -
the stain from fallen walnuts
stuck to our hands

Williams County 5 Vignette

twice it plies
Little Muddy's twisting banks --
Autumn Equinox






mile markers
in every headlight --
convoy on the 13th night

alone with a mirror
trying on these cowboy hats --
Autumn sky








heat and drought,
weeks gone by and still no rain
grass as dry as tinder
an Angus calf all caught up
in a few bare strands of wire








  a river of fog
high above the coulee --
prairie greets the dawn

Williams County 5 -
pheasant children waiting
all along the road







black-tailed deer
waiting in the blowing dust,
 a last leaf falls
the only tree within
miles and miles

Lottie Trude

.



My Daddy didn’t dowse water. He drummed up advertising clients for that local news weekly. Mrs. Lottie Trude, that little old lady from Texas who helped raise me when I was a little boy could. She kept a black widow in a jar for us to recognize, too, warned us to beware of snakes, not to eat the red berries and she'd wield a fly swatter ‘cross my backside when I was bad.

She carved "little" people's faces out of green apples, set them aside to dry, wrinkled and wizened, made lifelike with age, bodies clad in overalls and house frocks handmade. There were entire little families fashioned out of that county's namesake clay in Missouri, too. All her subjects were country people, folk art, from before the war, some of it, some as far back as the Depression, an America depicted of rural people who relied on the land. She had a statue of liberty, the Eiffel Tower, Popeye, Olive Oil, and Sweet Pea, too.

She had a garden patch in the back of her acre lot, and a small, ramshackle house built into the hill before the city got big. We rented upstairs, she preferring the lower level's cool confines. I walked a mile every day to school. We'd go to a country store for supplies and she always bought me some kind of a treat. I fell off the deck once, got stuck by a nail. Mrs. Trude fixed me up. Other times we'd run around the house a few laps until the hurt wore off. Sometimes the blue jays would chase us, or the chiggers would catch us rolling in the grass, sweaty from play. In the height of summer the earth would crack, it was so hot. In some places, the fissures so deep, we'd drop a pebble in and wonder if it fell all the way to China.

A pair of black walnuts flourished in that ground, with deep roots, strong enough to withstand tornadoes that roared through. Late in the season, their unripened fruit lay all about, emitting an aroma piercing as the katydid's call. We would gather them, sticky and cloying, fingers stained the same as a grasshopper would trying to get away. Those days, so long, they seemed never to end. At least until your name was called and you'd run, dodging lightening bugs, into your bath and your bed to dream of things that had gone before.



so very long ago
` in language meant for a child
I can hear their voices,
` the tang of green walnuts
the depth of red clay




.