or at least until morning,
instead, enter the old narrative,
move the mountains, the rivers,
like Colorforms on a plastic board,
late afternoon light through tilted slats
background sound of falling rain, or
the refrigerator motor kicking in
waking fully clothed on the bed
Middlemarch turned face down
centering on hexagram 61, 中孚, zhōng fú
which translates as ‘center returning,’ or ‘inner truth’
I say this as the refrigerator/rain reaches silence
tinnitus returns, the endless refrain
of the truthful inner ear’s ducts and cochlea
impossible to fall asleep again
with a twenty-four/seven/three sixty-five song
ruining silence and meditative calm
I pass through the same intersection
three times in rush hour traffic
where Highway 19 and Curlew intersect
clerks and store managers are polite
body language expressing what
coronavirus facial coverings hide
it is a pleasure doing business with you
I’ll have to return, to drop off, to pick up
to turn tail and chase my tail
hexagram 24, 復, fù, which translates as
‘return (the turning point)’
with everything I do, instead
predictions skew and sabotage
an evenly measured one quarter
of anything I do, and like clean, white bones
a slow, steady fall into a tight spiral
pleasure taken watching the downspout water
flow away from the building
in a newly dug shallow trench
rain no longer leaks in at the edge
where decades-old cinderblock and slab
met, married, separated, and divorced
obviously this is hexagram 59, 渙, huàn
which translates as ‘dispersing’
not the first time I’ve witnessed the way water
reflects inner thoughts, a natural honest mirror
even as it shudders, mimics Gulf of Mexico tides
vanishes in kudzu, palmetto, mangrove
even as we meet, mimic, mirror
drain, divide, and disperse
our individual substantial flows
along this Gulf of Mexico shoreline
away from bathers and fenced off turtle nests
the beach runs south to north
bleached mangrove twigs form
dead gardens, a jab-at-you sharpness
a spit of land, course soil a hurricane
could submerge without effort
stringy seaweed bundles define high tides
boats tote red and white fishermen
focus on sonar, hardware, gasoline
this construct of motors, consumerism, and
Mammon’s daily ritual offerings
outweighed by relentless waves
from the Yucatan Peninsula
another ill-planned emotional-intellectual road trip
we lack paper maps, geo-synchronous satellites, cell phone towers
adequate service station restrooms
an extra windshield wiper, I bring up
hexagram fifty-five, 豐, fēng, which translates as ‘abundance’ or ‘abounding’
‘abundance,’ which you translate as literally ‘everything’
from electrons to galactic clusters and whatever falls in between
this inevitably brings me around to the possible singularity
at the possible beginning of literally everything
I translate ‘abounding’ to mean leaping forward
sideways, backwards, straight up in the wind
cloud, atmosphere, solar system, Milky Way
galactic cluster, where we continually agree to meet
I just have a different way of getting there
fair is the fare for six hundred and ten days
I scale you scale, we all scale a fail whale
the watchword for eighty-seven weeks is
hexagram two, 坤, kūn, which translates as ‘receptive’ or ‘flow’
I imagine a channel or conduit, narrow, shallow
the flow as solid and interminable as the Suwannee River
often sluggish, often still, and
in that still, stagnant space only one thing can happen
perfect balance, the Western concept of a ‘Zen’ state
where nothing ever happens
midday brings two mockingbirds speeding
do they see themselves reflected in window glass?
or did chance bring them to a particular place?
on the ground they posture with inordinate language
without touching, with intent, without conclusion
I’m incapable of discerning mating from fighting
I still play the fluted edge of the crystal bowl
as though it were a piano, just as my mother
did when she was a child, and my grandmother
before that in Prague, and probably
the glassblower, too, in the old country
before the final test to see how long
it would sustain this lovely note.
pave the Sunday afternoon sky,
not complacent, when doing
Funeral Pyre for the Married Mushrooms
The two shelf mushrooms on the log
lean into one another for just a moment
before erupting into a single flame—
we, their avatars, watch from our camp chairs
laptops and power cords unplugged
another day gathered into memory
rain pounds the evening into silence
pounds the first week of summer into silence
never mind the steamy roof heat
never mind the hoof beats, steady
the shuttered eyes, already
There are some weeds I leave
untouched, allowing them to grow
and overtake the ugly things
I never should have planted.
ant, I think, and slap a bundle of paper
she flows like an octopus
equal to a twelve point font letter ‘o’
runs behind a wall calendar
is a photo of a hummingbird
who eyes the spider, sideways
half an hour later she returns
dangles from raised blinds
and pulls herself up the thread
oblivious to my objective consciousness
oblivious to my existence
the clavicle, when gently struck
with a mallet, will produce
a reliable tone often needed
the proper rhythm of the heart.
in the steamy dishwasher —
the juncos dropping seeds
praising my indifference,
vivid end-of-the-world-as-I-know-it fantasies
fill bright mornings and sleepless nights
the fear of abandonment always present
imagining and then waiting for the deal-breaker
am I manifesting or merely prescient?
teetering between self-recrimination,
I-told-you-so, and a spiritual helium lift
look at the well-heeled dog
New Moon, Summer Solstice, Yajna
I burn thirty-eight pieces of paper
repeat phrases until the smoldering stops
a baby rabbit hops around the altar
I catch myself, distracted
will my messages to myself
be sleek and nibble grass?
will file card smoke cling to me?
will you know I wrote your name
untenable images in the middle of the night
I construct a paradigm from whole cloth
create 16 mm home movies of the mind
grainy, stuttered, full of central casting
fulfilling fears and phobias
a writer’s need for drama
a publicist’s need for thwarted romance
an editorial need for closure
storms build, roll in gradually and persistently
today’s forecast is for níłtsą́ bi'áád, a female rain
it starts soft, produces St. Elmo's fire
electrifies the lightning rod of the heart
scorches my anima at three a.m.
leaves me grasping handfuls of interwoven
In an emergency, a spatula
can be used as a scalpel;
points to the stars and says
Elderly shoppers divert their eyes
to the wedding party making its way
As soon as the party moves on
to fresh fruit, the shoppers begin
to squirm at their carts, feel hungry
At home, the shoppers unload their bags
and find their refrigerator and pantry shelves
are already filled with rocks and shells
and there is no need for food.
I’m rotten Latin passages in Pepys’ diary
locked into a solitude box
shelved with Pandora and Schrödinger
I’m long distant pen pals with Kafka
patiently waiting for Kierkegaard to adopt me
tides rise and fall in the mind
the heart is a contrapuntal melody
an orchestra triangle balances out
timpani, trombones, trumpets
tusks intervene, teeth, talons
trickster coyote throws lit firecrackers
Anansi patiently waits his turn
I’m scrimshaw, seashells, flotsam, jetsam
narwhal tooth, ambergris, whalebone
yellowed, crackled, cracked
jammed into drawers stuck shut
in a museum of natural history
breakfast and lunch, skipped
afternoon cup of coffee, added
internal organs pace in a constrained space
cut a swath in the emotional rug
record a switched flight number
fool myself that I remain calm
waiting for the day to resolve
while I watch without participating
wèi jì, before completion
discover there is no emoji
abstracted from the daily environment
I move into my personal domains
delineate new borders in my mind
not sure if they will be accepted
like cold air, simple distance brings clarity
microscopes, telescopes, periscopes, prisms
itineraries once thought undoable
become worn paths replete with
trail markers and hillside riprap
friends listen, empathize, refrain from commenting
everyone deep in their own comfort zones
your response might be irrelevant
I imagine bones broken and healed
sore from running errands
leave the internet behind
enter the expansive natural world
this humid subtropical Florida evening
clouds move with palm frond grace,
reminds me of necessary, needful
On Reading the Ox-Herding Poems
black glass snake, tenuous, sensible
curled beneath squash blossoms
startled by the cull of dead vines
reminding, reinforcing, repeating
she curdles beneath a gate
leaves a burnished memory
a tri-colored heron walks past a window
curry paste turns the rice yellow
dishes angled into a drying rack
reflective saucepan lids, beaded water
this structural crease in an otherwise
pleated repeatedly like cloth
dodging thoughts buried in the folds
Yellow leaf holding its breath.
