8/18/2020

I Ching, Hexagram 30

 

‘radiance,’ flush

with anticipation I allow

agoraphobia to fade, flutter

fall into daydreams

 

quail run through underbrush

towhees kick litter and duff

flickers pound the chimney pipe

owls perch at the roof’s edge

ash-throated flycatchers, alight

lit

on

[sound of wind & hand gesture of wings flapping]

 

dry desert air floods mid-afternoons

pinyon, juniper, ponderosa pine

the mineral taste of granite

sunset glow beyond Iron Springs

a slow climb around 

Two Rock Mountain

later a dry wind fills the canyon

clouds rise above the Verde Valley

look but don’t touch

 

here, now

hurricanes, alligators, osprey

littered Clearwater beaches

eighty-nine degree Fahrenheit Gulf waters

thick humidity, rotted trees

fungus the daily penultimate chapter

touch but don’t look

[RK, 8/18/2020]

8/17/2020

I Ching, Hexagram 15

 

‘humbling’ or ‘modesty,’

waiting tossing flipping out

of the bed wide awake

imagining insects still under fallen

leaves, wondering if they sleep

or just wait out the morning

with dull millennial arthropod

complacency, wondering if they think

‘what if’ or ‘why did I’ or ‘I will, I won’t’

 

hear them in the morning, they

scuttle, slither, and slink

into the solar oven of retribution

wondering

if their limbs, antennae, or wings burn

if their pheromones penetrate walls

if they count minutes and seconds

the way I count years and days

[RK, 8/17/2020]

8/15/2020

Baggage

 

grass and weeds ripped up

dirt, sand, and well composted kitchen scraps

spaded,

a miniscule one hundred twenty square feet

of future kale, mustard, and chard

worm-less, anole-full, black and gray

trying uselessly to allocate finite energy

to turn the earth left-handed

pour sweat, haul in breaths

lean against a half-way point

consider stopping

stop not

stop watch

waiting, anticipating leveling rain

organic nutrients, grains, greens,

hot shower, cold tea

another afternoon on life’s downslope

added to a neatly tied bundle, bundle

added to one of many mental attic steamer trunks

with already faded, unreadable labels

[RK, 8/15/2020]

8/13/2020

Battery

what fades is forgotten
morning's bed, soft
as April in August

energy centers found wanting
wasteful and powerless
how do I plug in a psychic charger
how do I obtain the correct
voltage, amperage, current flow

asking of the invested time
is there a recording I click, copy, and paste
play back or review at will?
[RK, 8/9/2020]
Approaching

a Red Southern Oak acorn
flattened saucer-like cup
the single item I bring back
from my first walk on the
Appalachian Trail above Sam's Gap
North Carolina

we hike to variable elevations
cross over, just, into Tennessee
lookouts, scenic hills, breezes,
barely-there rain sprinkles
blackberries, unknown illustrious flowers
elusive fungus, rotted trees, ponds in hollows

a dead three-inch-long baby mole
intact
[RK, 8/9/2020]
What I Remembered

effervescent yellow, orange, and red fungus
everywhere
a Smoky Mountain trail
lichens, mushrooms
saprophytic ghost flowers

fur-packed black scat
pinnate sycamore leaves
spongy duff, a brick red newt

friable fallen branches alphabet the understory
[RK, 8/9/2020] 
Vanishing Act

firefly, singular
horse hoofbeats in darkness
moon illuminated bush beans
peach trees, wild white mushrooms
at the edge of a disappearing
gravel road
[RK, 8/9/2020]
Stereotype

endless Native American Cherokee stereotypes
gift shops, wigwam motels, war bonnets
plastic images of bear totems on and in everything
a vanishing, an usurpation

yet rural street signs lettered in English
are subtitled in Tsalagi Gawonihisdi
a cost efficient nod to a stolen nation
seen from a window at the Super 8
[RK, 8/9/2020]
 
If You Fell In Love

standing beneath liquid ice at Sea Creek Falls
invigorating as anticipated
exhilarating as expected

if your masseuse was Thor
relentlessly pounding
if you shivered like Saturday morning 
cartoon characters
if you fell in love
with hypothermia
[RK, 8/9/2020]
Escape

rough-husked black walnuts in deep grass
mottled, bumpy eight-balls scattered

beehives encircled with electrified wires
honey trapped, bear befuddled

one volunteer tomato plant
escapes the compost pile
[RK, 8/9/2020]

String Figures


We are born of the world,

as a sweater is born of the skein,

a noose of the rope.


[LSS, 7/30/20]


Rootbound


While I was out mountain bagging,

the garden has held watch 

on summer’s passage, managed 

to keep itself alive.  Today 

it’s a rain forest of sprinklers, 

my belated blessing, my plea 

for forgiveness as I am both 

god and sinner in this master plan.


[LSS, 7/29/20]


Echolocation


We remain here on the edge

unconnected to the mainland

on an island floating in the sea

waiting for the children

we orphaned along the way

to finally rejoin us.


[LSS, 7/28/20]


Diagonal Line


It took only an hour

to cut and paste

the mossy stepping stones 

in the water, scrambling 

their history, connecting 

the vertices that can never 

exist on the same edge.


[LSS,  7/27/20]

Not Rhetorical At what point  does what you  are looking for  become what you  are looking at. [LSS, 3/23/24]