Rusty Tool

The wrench falls.

CLANG.

No surprise.

But what if

the wrench unleashed 

took a detour

before it hit 

the floor, looking 

through windows, floating 

out an open door, surveying 

the island, the ocean, even 

visiting the mainland 

to tour a museum or two, 

before boarding the last 

ferry home and landing 

at your feet?

What sound 

would it make then?

Would it even bother

to come back home?

[LSS, 9/15/20]

The Language of Trees

During conference calls

I often excuse myself:

There is something I need to do.

Then I slip into the hallway

trying to listen to the conversation

going on without me,

but all I hear is the sound 

of the pruned trees licking 

their wounds, the maples 

coordinating their fall 

convention, the soliloquy 

of the burl forming 

at the base of skull.

[LSS, 9/15/20]

I Ching, Hexagram 19 (Approaching)

 

for the first place I am rooted in place

face your air finger tracings

how you delineate

boundaries, walls, limits

even while clanging about

spontaneity and impulsiveness

 

the narrow, conservative way of

acceptable social behavior limits

truly spontaneous or impulsive

words and actions, ways of seeing

 

these shallow points of view sculpted

with thread-width non-vision

sparkless, passionless

the glacial creep of conversations, conversions

corrections, commitments to momentary decision-making

inevitable faux pas and Freudian slip

abounding

 

I twist my social self into the appropriate poses

self-adjust, remember to exhale

agreeable bland phrases

I create equilibrium smoothies

with spirit level, pendulum

weedwhacker, heavy scythe

 

for the last place I am adrift

in a contained space, nodding

by turns complacent, sleepy

in time with cosmic wheels

even as acceptable definitions

form, daily, and vanish, daily

leaving no traces

[RK, 9/14/2020]

 Bird Note

Your words and mine flow 

through different pipelines 

coming from the same well. 

[LSS, 9/14/20]

Test Results

My blood and personality types 

are a perfect match, with one 

having the added distinction 

of being positive.

[LSS, 9/14/20]

Types of Poems

The list poem,

the lost poem.

The lust poem,

the last poem.

The least poem,

the love poem.

[LSS, 9/13/20]

Return

tropical storm winds

evening’s rain showers

intermittent but constant

 

the silent simplicity of

hands, touching

[RK, 9/13/2020]

 Windowsill

Dead birds, buttons and zippers removed

from worn-out clothes, coyote vertebrae

strung like beads on a wire, the progress

of an overripe pear, a strong draft saying

the West is on fire, it’s coming your way,

the blank space I left by returning 

the dried weeds and driftwood to the sea.

[LSS, 9/12/20]

 Aphid Ranch

While the ants herd aphids 

to the tender growth at the tip 

of the lemon verbena, preparing

to milk them for sugar, 

I flag the book I'm reading 

with sticky notes, each small slip 

a drop of honeydew for later.

[LSS, 9/10/20]

Book of Days

We have farmed the land

of this marriage more than

forty years, turning back

into its soil every unbearable 

darkness, every hellish day,

craving this work, this endless

labor that is the very thing

keeping us alive.

[LSS, 9/10/20]