Falling

I
The man on the television,
bow tie, active adam’s apple,
“It’s really quite simple,” he said,
gravitation in the space-time continuum,
he dramatically swept out his right arm and
his image retreated to the lower right corner of the screen
the screen filled with intersecting lines,
all at right angles, like graph  paper,
like the map of some prairie town.
In the center, the lines sagged, bent downward
“space is curved” he said
“and this is a gravity well” pointing at the dip in the graph.
“imagine a ball,” and a ball magically appears.
The ball slowly circled, drawn into the vortex
spiraling down

II
The ballroom, the parquet floor,
square laid beside square
music swirling, dancers turning
I stand fixed in the corner
across the room, through the bodies, your face
I became unpinned,
untethered, everything  undone
and my heart began to slowly circle
pulled into the gravity well of your eyes

Henk

First one boot dropped, then the other. A slow even exhalation of air slipped through rounded lips; followed by a sigh of satisfaction as he pulled at his socks. Cool air, hot feet. He bent over his rather large belly and started to massage his feet. He was thus arrayed when I entered the room. The worn out boots adorned with damp blue socks. I contemplated at what point the ratio of holes to fabric would change my understanding of when a sock passed into no-sock. While I pondered this, I noticed a faint cheesy odor slowly filling the room.

“I hope you don’t mind me making myself comfortable,” he luxuriated over the last word and added, “My feet needed a little air.”

This was my introduction to “Henk’”, a friend, a very dear friend of my father. I had been expecting him. Pop called, saying that Henk needed a stopover point on his way down south. The two of them would be going fishing out on the Gulf.

As I had walked up to my apartment building                                               I saw the dented old pickup with muddy Alaska plates out front, I walked over to see if Henk was sleeping in the back. I pulled back the loose flap on the end of a wood frame which had green duck canvas stretched tightly over it. I supposed that this was an “Alaskan Camper”, homemade, designed to fit over the slightly askew bed of the pickup. The same cheesy odor wafted from it. No Henk. I figured that he had wondered down to 45th St. for a cup of coffee. I was very surprised to find him inside my locked apartment.

Did see my Ol’ Whip outside?” he asked.
I imagined some kind of dog sled implement of encouragement. “Huh?” I responded as I edged backwards a step towards the door.

“You know, Ol’ Whippoorwill, my dog … kind of black … stands about this high,” pointing at his hip. “She’s harmless enough … the only sudden move she makes is to nip at fleas.”

“No, I didn’t see any dog …” My voice trailed off as I noticed out the window this large black animal crossing the street with a pure white cockatiel hanging limply in its mouth.

Henk followed my eyes, “Oh, there she is …” paused, “Well … I s’pose I should fed her before I came up here. I guess I got distracted by that lock on your door. Never seen one of them before. What is it, some kind of combination lock? Took me nearly ten minutes to crack it.”

My apartment was one of those new ones with all sorts of electronic gadgets. If he thought the door lock was unusual, wait until he used the light switch.

“By the way, you might want to talk to that nosy lady down the hall. She probably didn’t realize I’m sort of “family.” She seemed a little put out when she saw me fussing over that lock.”

The flashing blue lights on the cop cars down on the street explained the heavy pounding on the door.

“COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR!”
Henk looked a little sheepish, “Well how about that.”

How many times?

What was said to the rose

that made it open

was said to me

 – Rumi

How many times

How many times had I turned

the corner of the barn

along side the gray

splintered redwood siding

a flash of color

yellow tipped red petals of a rose

just a single stem

pulled by the afternoon sun

a flower springing from rocks and gravel

How many times had I been here and not seen it

my mind, my thoughts remote, my jaw hard

it was planted when the barn was built

      by a worn-out farmer’s wife

looking for some sweetness in her life

     she presented this gift to the world

maybe he would see it

and it would soften his heart

     but he never did

passing back and forth all his life

and when he died, she buried him

covering his grave with rocks as hard as his heart

How many times had I passed by here?

   maybe it was the angle of the sun

   or perhaps the dying afternoon breeze

How many times?

Muse

My eye caught a slight movement off to the left

she was about ten, curly blond hair

large blue and yellow flowers on a crisp white dress

I followed her eyes. She was looking over my shoulder

there it was, charging out of the grassy meadow

a huge brown bear at full gallop its back bristled

its roar resounded inside my chest

I stood transfixed as it passed, so close

I could feel its hot breath

on it went, swallowed by the morning mist

back in the middle of the meadow,

from where the beast had come

stood a single tree its branches

covered with the pale green buds of Spring

I slumped back into my chair

a blank sheet of paper

the pen, the ink already flowing.

Pay Attention

If you are bored you are not paying attention

pay attention to every moment

drive along a country road

turn off the radio

with its stories of bombs and

   cannons killing the innocent and the not so innocent,

   housing foreclosures,

   falling dollars, rising dollars,

   radioactive tsunamis.

Turn it all off and watch the flowers, the trees

   stand witness

   filling the air with air.

the irregular pavement

jostling you in your seat

this way and that

see that bird land on the road

   only to take off again

where am I going?

not there yet

I’m here

Bitter Orange

The slow flapping of curtains

a half open window

the scent of bitter orange

carried in on notes from Brian Eno

and so the passing of winter

vernal hopes reach out

past the confines of my heart

Just Listen

Just listen,

listen to the music.

fall into the silence of the un-struck notes.

turn off the tube, the whirr of the fridge.

they are eating the world.

The low hum of computer fans,

the chatter of printers borrowing into the mind,

the chirp of electronic phones.

turn them all off!

            Is it quiet yet?

            stop     breathe           listen,

            listen to the music.

The lazy buzz of a fly following

   the warmth of oak leaves

   passes into the cool breeze rustle of the shade.

the earth is moving to a

   sway of yellow notes.

The tick of a clock measuring

   out our lives

the creaking bones of the house

   as it cools, passing into

   the shade of clouds moving across the sun.

Just listen,

listen to the music.

music not defined by notes

   but by the space between them.

Down deep in there,

down into the center of the earth,

who plays that flute there?

who is that re-creating the world

            in each moment?

   maybe it is just the song that we are.

Tangerine

slowly peeling the

tangerine I watch

as you undress

A Pot of Gold

Jessica came running in a short burst down a slight hill in the park. Her right arm was raised trailing a string and a kite. Once the kite was aloft, she slowed and watched as a gust of wind took the kite and a hundred feet of string from the spool in her hands. Up, up it went into wild gyrations as she pulled this way and that. Her heart soared. She could not remember when something pleased her as much as flying a kite on a sunny summer afternoon.

Now she found something other than kites that pleased her in a different way. It was Frankie. He was slouching on the grass of the little hill in his un-athletic manner, watching her. They had little in common. He was a night owl. She always rose early. He exhibited little energy, while she bounced and ran at every opportunity. She wore warm colors and favored braids. Frankie wore black, black jeans, and a leather jacket. He even wore black underwear.

As she squinted at the kite crossing the sun she thought back to the time she first met Frankie. He had come to visit his grandfather Frank Riordan who was spending the last weeks of his life in a bed on the ward where she worked at the hospital. She took to Frank from the first day of his admission. Even though his body was ravaged by cancer, he had an almost jaunty smile that was genuine, not faked. She began to realize that he had smiled like that all his life, when he showed her a picture of himself wearing his uniform in the first world war. There he was saluting for the camera with that same smile. He must have been only eighteen at the time and now 75 years later he had the same sparkle.

The first relative of Frank that Jessica met was Carolyn O’Connor, the same Carolyn O’Connor who was a local politico, a member of the board of supervisors. She breezed in one day in a mauve suit talking 500 words a minute. After sitting less than a minute she bounced up to wipe something from her father’s lips. She cracked small nervous jokes and then laughed to cover her discomfort in the presence of eminent death. Frank didn’t mind. He just smiled. He obviously loved her and was used to her antics. Frank’s face beamed even brighter when in walked Frankie, his grandson.

Jessica at first thought he was a biker with all that black leather and chains. However, it was obvious that he never did anything as athletic as raising a leg to get onto a Harley-Davidson. Carolyn turned pale as she saw her unfortunate progeny. She checked to see if any of her constituents could observe that she had a relationship with this person before she began to talk. What she did say revolved around black motorcycle clothes, laziness, not going to school, and how she had to rush off to a committee meeting. In a purple puff she was gone.

Jessica usually stayed out of patient’s rooms when they had visitors, but she found herself drawn to this strange pair, the grand-father and his grand-son. It was clear that they loved each other. She felt like a thief who' d just discovered a pot of gold.

as through a glass darkly

I step hesitantly through

   this strange house

the air punctuated with shafts of light

    changes from dim to clear then back again

The hardwood floor stained

   with generations of shadows

darkens away from well worn paths

   towards walls notched with doorways

In one, a beveled mirror framed

   in dark scrolled wood

My father, long dead,

   peers back at me

his arms held out

   as if to beckon

   as if to embrace

on my neck, one by one, each hair subsides

   and slowly, oh so slowly

I lower my arms and smile

   and he smiles back at me.