After the earthquake

This body folded in creases belongs
to mirrors. They protect him, kill her
bury her arms beneath
the Mary Todd Lincoln rose
empty for seasons of bloom.

Familiar with winter and the illustrated history
of men with substitute faces, she is removed.

In the dark, she writes: Picasso had his monkey
his masks to remind him he could no longer dance.

She has; the other body—in pieces, without blood,
attached to light and the hardship of bone.

When she breathes, she tastes words.
When she moves, she separates.


***


Ghosts in pursuit

I breathe the fog, drink my tea
dressed up with honey and milk.
My hands are locked to a minor key.

Who will play the piano
behind the window, adorned
with ice blue silk and an October rose,
floating free in a crystal vase?

Trap me in drifts of pretty,
run me up or run me down,
but play me a song
before dragging me out to gray.


***

Bees and arctic ice are our canaries in the coalmine.

I was on Mandela Parkway today, walking in the central divide, and this extraordinary mural caught my eye. I always notice bees, and these bees are exquisitely painted, alive and humming beside a beautiful enigmatic signature, crowded with human faces that come and go. Sometimes, I find eyes staring out at me, mouths open and close. These, I think, are the human bees that have swarmed from the hive behind, a back-lit pyramid towards which fly the winged bees, allied insects of the Melliferous or honey gathering division of the Aculeate (or sting-bearing) Hymenoptera.  In the upper right and left hand corners of the painting, words are printed:

                                                     BEE AWARE                                          CONNECTED
                                                    Save the honey bees                                             WORLDS                          
                                                                                                                                   
I loved this bee-thronged lotus bloom, wished it had been a bee warm afternoon, but the day was grey and cool,  a wan afternoon fading into evening, dying into night. Nonetheless, standing in front of the painting, I feel as if I am flying to the light. I only hope my wings don't melt.

I thought of a poem I wrote a while back.

Listening

Before the end, bees disappear
and mosquitoes and love bugs
but gray-haired couples push
twins in three-wheeled strollers
with room to jog behind.
There are many sunny days.
No rain. But there is wind.
Then towns disappear and cows
lodge in trees stripped of leaves.
Small children dance nightly
in circles, palms locked on
naked thighs, mouse ears
pressed to crescent moons.
Birds sing past midnight.
At one a.m. meadowlarks, at three
anemic crows, by five sparrows.
Across the sea, a soldier fires his last bullet
into a bleached skull too large
to be human. The sound is immense,
greater than stars or sea waves.

Some years ago, I was driving across the country and decided to stop at Carlsbad Caverns.  As I had only been to one other cave – Onandaga Cave in Missouri – I had some idea what a spectacular cave might be like, but I was ill-prepared for the magnificence and holiness I discovered within the earth at Carlsbad, 750 ft. below cactus studded ground. Rather than take the elevator, I decided to walk into the caverns along the mile-long concrete pathway that wound slowly downward to the main cavern, and I was glad for that decision. As if acting as guards, cave swallows flew anxiously about the entrance, looking much like disoriented bees removed from their hive. Their backs flashed orange as they swooped up, then down, drawing invisible nets across the mouth of the cave. I acknowledged their greeting and ignored their warnings as I walked into the dim interior of the cave, feeling as if I were entering an abandoned hive, occupied by honeyed ghosts.  

The cavern was not brightly lit, but there was enough light to allow me to see both the delicate and the stalwart formations. In deep recesses, a lacework honeycomb of soda straws and tiny columns created miniature fairy kingdoms and in the great vast hall of the main cavern, huge stalagmites glowing honey gold rose majestically toward the ceiling hundreds of feet above. Along the walls cascades of “draperies,” rock folded gently as if it were fabric, and waterfalls of shiny frozen calcite acted as curtains, separating this magic world from the more mundane layers of sturdy mountain rock. I stood alone, hearing only the buzz of my own body, and felt again as if I had entered a hive, once pliable and free, now stolid and stone, yet the deeper I went into the cavern, the more protected I felt, wrapped in the embrace of a dimensional and palpable silence. I could feel the earth breathing, and every honeyed exhalation spread evenly on my skin, clearing pores and feeding bones; every inhalation pulled me to the heart of the hive. Several times, I was so overwhelmed that I could only sit and breathe.

When I finally came once again into the sun, late late in the afternoon, I was so disoriented  I checked into the motel at the entrance to the park—reasonable rates—and return to the edge of the cave, my frozen hive, to wait for sunset when 300,000 bats would spiral out of the cave and fly off in all directions in search of insects. When these tiny Mexican free-tail bats, so small  they  curl easily into a film canister, exit the cave, they swarm and spiral like bees, wings whirring in unison, slowly gaining altitude until they finally rise above the lip of the cliff and head in various directions toward the near-by rivers. At first, like bees, they form their own river, but as these are bats, that river soon breaks into islands, and the smaller bands of bats fly off in separate directions—some going south, others west, and a few adventurers flying north. None fly east towards the dry desert. Like bees, they search fecundity.

Connected worlds.

  Marketplace

On a dusty street, an agave blooms
with tiny clustered flowers, twenty feet
above sidewalks of ash brushed sand
littered with crumpled petals brown rosy
marked by black. Bumbles come and go.
I’m glad to see those bees. I’ve worried lately
about the absence of wasps and houseflies.
A white-ribbed sky turns and twists, a map
of delta flats at low tide where seabirds catch
the wind. Their flight and earth spin provide us rest
blue shade at the edge of empty beaches
near jungle terraces marked by restless jazz.
I sort photos of circuses and clowns.
In exchange for food, I give up speech.

Last evening after dark Earnest went onto the backyard to sniff around, and suddenly he was wildly barking – a sharp officious bark reserved for intruders. I went to see what was up, and saw him pounce on a critter hiding under the foxglove, shake it rapidly twice, and toss it high into the air – something I have seen him do with my shoes, only this was a live critter. Well, alive no longer. I turned on the backyard lights and went closer so I might see what he had captured such ferocity and speed. Curled on the grass, limp and quite dead, was a half-grown possum. I am not a fan of possums, but seeing this young creature dead on the grass wrenched my heart. Earnest was still barking wildly and poking the body with his nose. I did not want him to tear the body limb from limb, and not knowing just how far his instincts might push him, I feared he might. I went back into the house, got the leash, then pulled him gently from his prey and led him unwilling and still barking up the stairs into the house. Then, I wrapped the dead possum, lifted it from the grass, and carried it to a curbside trashcan awaiting an early morning pickup.

My next job was to clean the dirt and blood from Earnest’s face. He was still quite agitated, but settled down when I spoke quietly and firmly to him. He sat still, as he has been conditioned to do, and allowed me to clean him up, which I did with warm water, wet towels and then with pre-moistened paper wipes. As I gently scrubbed away the dirt and death from his face, I thought about the instinct that had prompted him to pounce. He has not been trained as a hunter. Not in this life. He came to live with me when he was still a puppy after spending the first months of his life living quietly in a SoCal apartment, much loved by the man who had had him since birth, so loved that when that man realized that the rigors of his job would keep him from giving this little dog the attention he felt the pup deserved, he looked for another home with someone who had time to share with his beloved dog. That someone was me. Earnest has always been a peaceful and affectionate dog, responsive and aware, ready and willing to learn all that is necessary to live in a human household. He has become a dear friend, and I have always appreciated and encouraged his peaceful nature, praising him when he greets others with friendliness, hugging him when he offers kind kisses to other dogs.

Then suddenly, with stunning swiftness, he kills another creature. As I picked up that limp body, noticing the pink padded possum toes, the closed eyes beside a razor sharp nose, the strange grey fur interrupted by coarser longer hairs, I thought about the power of instinct, what it is to have a directive to kill bred in the bone. Scottish terriers, a breed that has its origins in the 15th or 16th century, were bred to kill vermin on farms and to drag rabbits, foxes, otters, and badgers from their dens. They were bred to kill. Even today, as a breed, Scottish terriers are known to be extraordinarily territorial, feisty, and rugged, ready to race wildly over rugged terrain – a reputation shared even by those who spend their days frolicking about fenced backyards, avoiding flowerbeds. No one mentions ‘killer instinct’ when talking about pets. Looking down on the dead possum, I couldn’t help but think that such centuries-old breeding still influences modern dogs who have never seen a moor or been on a foxhunt, and that thought sobered me.

Of course, I don’t want my beloved dog killing small creatures. I did not let him worry the carcass. I removed the body as quickly as possible. But as I have had other dogs in my life who also exhibited as suddenly and as powerfully such instinctual behaviors, I am not one to deny the power of instinct. I once shared my house with an even-tempered and quite distinguished English bulldog, also adopted, born and raised in NYC. He was a tender soul, gentle with kids, kind to cats, but when confronted by a wayward bull who had broken through a fence, he did just what bulldogs had been bred to do. Barking wildly, he raced under this enormous animal, grabbed hold of the loose neck skin, and while expertly avoiding rampaging hoofs, this pussycat of a dog managed to direct the bull out of the yard and back onto the high desert. After my dog moved adroitly aside, the bull took off at a gallop -- with my sweet Teddybear in hot pursuit, nipping at its heels. Watching him ‘at work,’ one would think such expert maneuvering was trained behavior, but he had never seen any bovine creature except from the window of a car. I certainly never expected such skilled rodeo dancing from this sedentary dog whose major physical activity up to that point had been ball-chasing and then only for brief intervals. He preferred lying quietly, watching the sun move across the floor. Give him a rawhide bone to chew and he was a happy camper.

Such behaviors as herding bulls or ferreting out and killing small animals may have been originally learned centuries ago by ancestors, but when these contemporary city-bred dogs exhibit such behaviors, one thinks instinct. B.F Skinner believed that all behavior is learned behavior, but seeing such sudden eruption of instinctual behavior, one has to wonder.  Both the dogs I describe are domestic dogs, raised as pets, but belong to breeds that had hunting and herding traits selected centuries ago. Familiar only with city streets, Teddy, the bulldog, was seven-years-old when he first encountered that bull in Colorado. Earnest, my young terrier, has not been raised or encouraged to go after small animals. Both can be described as house pets, comfortable lying for hours on their mats, accustomed to eating meals provided twice a day, yet both exhibited unexpected behaviors certainly not learned in their lifetimes. These very specific and distinctive behaviors seem instinctual, bred in the bone.

I wonder, if dogs are born with an instinctual knowledge of behaviors learned in another age, and if that instinctual knowledge is at times so powerful it overwhelms more contemporary conditioning, what does that mean? What about humans? What powerful yet unrecognized  instincts overwhelm us? Is war, for example, conditioned or instinctual behavior? If  we were to recognize it as instinct born in an era with rules and circumstances that no longer apply in the contemporary world, might we more easily eliminate it?

Humans are animals who learned centuries ago that their survival might depend on guarding territory and energy stores, but does such behavior fit in today’s world where cooperation is needed for the survival both of human culture and the planet? If  instinctual behaviors of dogs can be diminished and discouraged – and they can be – so then can the instinctual behaviors of humans, but first we may have to first admit we have these behaviors, negative and positive, bred in the bone, that we are not blank slates at birth, that our past touches, trains, and tames our future.

*  *   *  *

Diversion  

Let us think again of Titian,
explain the exact nature of this fixation.
Shepherds, naked in winter
drunk on curves.

Okay, it’s imprudent to wait for God
and diamonds never burn.

Discontent makes a shambles
       of chronology
       of topology           
       of psychology.                

She came for asylum, became
skeletal, blind at dawn,
pummeled by odor

balsam rain
stone.
 
 ---from: drawing breath

Even now, thirty-three years after dancing 'The World's Largest Painting' onto the surface of a silent highway that had once hummed with traffic, I still love street art -- on the street, above the street, beside the street. Walking about my West Oakland neighborhood, I am interested in the number of portraits, many of women, that find their way onto the street.

And few, if any, of those portraits are profiles. These folk have eyes wide open and look squarely at the passers-by, without smiling. Colors are bold; lines simple and direct, message clear.

We are watching you.

Eyes on the street.

This portrait, painted on a turquoise ground is tacked to a piece weather-worn particle board that seals a window or some other point of entry. The portrait is not at eye-level -- I had to crouch down to take this picture -- but it stabs out at the street with a ferocity both tender and pure. You can't miss it.

Around the corner and down the block, this gentle portrait is also painted on board that is then affixed to the exterior of an entrance door. No attempt was made to alter the graffiti scrawled surface of the door before tacking the serene portrait to the center panel of the door, but the walls on either side of the door have been painted an off-white. Someone, perhaps the same person who painted the portrait, has posted a hand-written sign, aimed at reaching more casual graffiti writers:

Please don't bomb our neighborhood.
They'll bulldoze our buildings

If you want to survive, don't toss trash.
Life is hard. Make art.

I love the power of this young girl's gaze and I like how she rises like a wind above the layered 'tags' that cover the door. That scribble beneath is sand beneath her feet' it shifts and breathes.

A serious painting on a serious street.

This much larger portrait, spray painted on the wooden slats slipped into a 8' high chain-link fence, gazes seductively at those who pass, her ruby lips and blushed lips drawing the gaze away from the bullets strung across her chest. She may be looking slightly askance but there is no question that she knows exactly where you are and who you are. Make no mistake; she sees you with greater clarity than you see her. She is the guardian angel of the street, but if she is an angel, she is an angel of both creation and destruction. She knows how to fly and how to burn. She is paradise on edge.






PARADISE HAS TEETH

Two Norfolk pines catch x-rayed sun
as angled blades pinned to branches still wet
with rain: the morning keeps its threat
of storm.  Eve sits, relieved of passion.

She lights a candle, then lays the match on
On lava stone, watches it burn to red,
then to black. Thunder rolls. She’s been misled--
Here’s the question: Why didn’t she catch on?

Her solitude is remarkable: ice
cold, fragile, electric blue. She finds need
dissolved beneath her tongue. She’s been deceived--

redesigned by archangels who first twice
refused the logic of her words, then turned
aside. When rescued from flames, she still burns.

Early Sunday morning is  a great time to walk on Los Angeles' midcity streets. The sun is breathing but not yet with any sort of ferocity, and the sidewalks are relatively empty. No speeding cars. No rumbling trucks. The stores are shuttered; even the sidewalk cafes have yet to open their doors, and other than me and my little Earnest, only a few energetic joggers are out and about. Earnest runs happily about, sniffing amongst the roots of an overgrown ficus tree, and I look carefully at the window displays of the storefronts we pass. A gallery off 3rd Street displays products suitable for scrubbing out all of last night's angst and tomorrow's anxiety.

Recipe for Restoration

Pour a bit of Voila
at the edge of the remembered
rub into crevices of the forgotten
wait until sun dissolves
to gold all dark shadow
sprayed down first by Despair
dug deeper with a wash of Dread
left to rust by ruin.
What is gone returns.

If the nouveau cleaning products prompted me to write silly verses in response to such a 'clean' display of grey, the whimsy of the  Let's Go Fishing window, with its neon color and collaged imagery of nostalgia made me want to dance. Despair-Dread-Voila seemed a tad too intentional and a wee bit too serious to be viewed as anything but fashionable art by the likes of me, but the casual happiness of the flat-painted pines and swimming butterflies of Let's go Fishing (for compliments!), a commercial window display not meant as art, made me laugh and made me think in more interesting directions than did the fine art designed to trigger thoughtful response.   I ended thinking more kindly of the cardboard cut-out with her inner tube than of the carefully positioned revisions of commonplace cleaning products. That rubber ducky scrubbed the cobwebs from my mind.

And then I found this glass-walled column, a window made square and tall, next to a closed door with only a small sign entrance to the back. On the other side of the door, a more traditional store window papered from the inside and blank to the street. Inside the glass-walled column a pile of worn ballet shoes with one checkered slip-on shoe nestled happily on top.

No explanation.

Keep dancing. Dance until the toes of your shoes are soiled and the soles worn through.

Dance.

Walking with a dog is different than walking with another person. Walk alongside a human friend and generally you will find yourself buried in conversation, walking along at a fast pace, enjoying the sun and wind but perhaps missing small details as the landscape floods by in a swift blur. Such a walk invigorates the body, warms the spirit. It;s good for you; no question. The physical heart beats rapidly, blood flows; it’s good exercise, but walk with a dog, the pace slows, the sky settles, the land leaps up, and suddenly the world has a sharper focus. The familiar becomes the strange.


What was yesterday just the Church of Light with its crown of spiky thorns, an Oakland landmark more at home with its towering glass faced neighbors suddenly becomes a part of the lake, an earth fountain allied to the waterspout before it, spilling light on all who pass.

You  can, of course,  walk rapidly and determinedly with a dog. Why not? They will trot happily along with you as you jog because they like to please, but if left to their own devices, they’ll stop every fifteen feet to examine a tree stump or a light post. Dogs walk for pleasure not for 'health'; when they run they prefer to run full out, and when they walk they explore every inch of the path. Following scent trails, they bury their noses for many long minutes in mysterious odors trapped in grasses or hidden beneath bushes, and if there’s no enticing aroma nearby, they’ll bark at squirrels, leap at birds, and pause to greet any passing dog. I have learned to appreciate my own little dog's active engagement with the world. My preferred method of walking with Earnest-the-Importance-of-Being-Earnest is to stop when he stops. Then, when he is busy analyzing some stain on a tree stump, I breathe and look about, find my moment while he finds his. His curiosity permits mine. While he is earnestly seeking, I can be honestly looking. It works.

Light posts are always good stopping places for dogs . . . and for people too. The first pole that captured Earnest's attention captured mine. I had to laugh at what I found there, and that laugh soon suffused to a warmth that felt like happiness.


Life's Hard, Make art.

So says the winged angel
with his crown of lights
and his body of focus,
arrows to the ground

Look down, look
down to earth.


When I did looked down, I noticed the tiny white daisies that cover the lawn at this time of year, and the red-painted bolts securing the light pole to its concrete foundation. I wondered about the person who had sat on the ground near the daisies, watching the geese on the lake while painting each bolt with great care. I should imagine she (and it was a 'she,' I'm think . . . do men carry nail polish in pockets?) used the entire bottle of fir-engine red nailpolish to paint the two red bolts. She must have; the other bolts were rusted grey. How long did it take?

I love this piece of art created by at least five anonymous artists collaborating with one another at different moments on different days. Community birthing.

Our world is our art. Our life our brush.
Life's Hard, Make Art.

She finds space inside distance, an absence
holds her, rocks her, wraps her up in woman song.
Black freighters, caves, cracked teacups. Love gone wrong.
Women in love with men in love with men
in love with women wanting love to offer
profit or return. A weave of rich brocade
labeled first as Destiny then as Fate.
But if love’s a weaver, she’s a spider
warping makeshift looms with threads
so strong they tether trees to stones, bend wind,
collect the rain. Sometimes webs are broken
but she knows spider threads are body threads.
They float on wind, hold on to light and wings.
Even shredded webs become offerings.

 *     *     *     *
 
. . . This is the final poem in my manuscript Darkwood Of Error. I include it here as the first post of this soon to be rambling blog, a place for photos and brief glimpses into the dim-lit caverns of my mind.