My view is distorted by lace and flowers
That have begun to wilt and burn
But the lace remains timelessly
Arched upon the bow
That keeps the clouds, so heavily
From my memory
And takes me back to a house I knew
Down Coppers Lane, remains.
I still smell the ancient windowsills
So beautifully exposed cedar wood
Grains like driftwood at the shore.
This pleasure reminds me
How much needed it is
To carry trinkets for the river.
Tag: house
In Calling (day 3156)
The Devil came to the house today
He knocked with three raps at the door
A long cold shudder filled the room
All knowing the impending doom.
We looked each other in the eye
Not sure which of us was to answer,
So finally I stood up to go
Amicably respond upon the threshold.
Each step I took echoed down the hall
Cold stone that now creaked and groaned.
I saw upon the mirror adjacent
To the threshold to whence I went
My reflection so scarcely visible
Trembling amidst my very bones.
Slowly, as if knowing the worst to come
I rotated the door handle slowly down
And opened up the door to see
Who had knocked three raps in calling me.
Weight of the World (day 3043)
How do you manage the weight of the world
When the weight of the world is too much?
When the birds are all sent to the sky, flying
By the dinosaur bones floating through the air?
How do the trees that lived for ten thousand years
Live for thirty years rotting in a house?
How does a landscape dug up, bulldozed around,
Erected with skyscrapers of metal and glass
Placed on the land held sacred for generations
Now become meaningless and void?
Perhaps it’s become a subject of cultural appropriation
Us humans and that of the Gods,
Powerful mother Gaia and her wiles and subtlety
And a grandiose sense of reality.
Hurricane (day 3019)
He blew us sideways
From here to the end
With wisps of raindrops
Pounding in
And all of which
Kissed dearly to the skin
So that thy eyes
Squinting and slim
Could barely make out
Five feet beyond
Jacket torn and stretched
Fighting as if angry devils
Were trying to take you in
And hardly keeping
This fighting body
From a thorough soaking
Deeply felt
But yet the landscape
Blew on sideways
Shrubs and goldenrod
Bending down
Trees began to wobble effortlessly
As if they were dancing
For the Devil grinning.
He continued to blow on
In to the night
What once we saw
Now could only feel
A constant humming
Beat against the house
That shook and trembled
As if to say
How oddly disturbing
This howling dance
Sent from Gods
Necromance.
Then, all at once
The gale drew back
Passed the land
Left the trees
Fell away from
Each eye squinting
So that dawn broke
Calm and tranquil
All remembering
What in anger
He had spoke.
Throat of Life (day 2847)
Wind is howling through this house
Like inescapable tombs of our past
Flesh biting flesh
Wrapped with fabric so dusty it crumbles.
Yet in open webs I can still see through
Nostalgia hits an ancient bone
That even her subtle breath of wind
Finds it hard to escape duty of.
Slowly eyelids close as raspy sun strokes,
A dying ember reminds us each
That our throat of life
Calms the day’s very nature.
Dinner Table, Hungry Plates (day 2489)
It has snowed and I am cold
Darkness sets the evening mood
But cheer and family have come around
Gathering at the house
To celebrate each other in cheer
And feast upon our fill
That rests idle at the dinner table
Waiting for our hungry plates
To spill and splash and mix and match
Each of us, indeed, happy as can be.
Black (day 2324)
I want a house designed all in black
I want to cover any colors, exposed
With ash, stain, darkness,
Shou Sugi Ban
– A blackness that cannot be rubbed off –
I will tint the windows
And dim the lights,
Burning only black candles.
Nothing new will enter this house
Nothing fresh or alive
Nothing that will shed light
On the depth of this hallow
Forever written in black ink
Upon black dyed paper.
I will eat only black beans
That will sit upon a black plate
Of black rice beside black olives,
Occasionally a loaf of pumpernickel
Will be permitted within.
I will wash with black soap
In a tub of black pearl
Dried by a black towel,
And my sheets of black cotton
Will rest quietly below
My duvet of black duck feathers
For my black soul
To sleep, evermore.
I Shall Not Walk Alone (day 2176)
Your gravity
Has been pulling me
Into a void
I care not to ignore
Anymore.
I care not to ignore
Precious angles
I’ve begun to run into
Lately.
Your mirrors
Will work again
Once I
Reflect long enough
To see
My reflection
Clearly.
Your house
Of angles
Has become the antithesis
Of a void
Which I’ve stepped into
Knowing.
I shall not walk
Alone.
To Be Sold (day 2103)
I laid there bleeding cold
Everything I had not seen
Now coming to my mind
Eyes fading to clean
Void and his sister: darkness
Sources of all I forgot
Laid here by a pistol
Made elaborately to be sold
In a house where everything
Is made to be seen
And there I lay motionless
No less then ever
Missing from the scene.
Moon at Midnight – Part XXVIII (day 2002)
The next day riders from other Blackfoot tribes came
And Mountain Chief, Moon Cow, and three other men
Rode off to a great meeting of Chiefs
I knew, and could tell,
That nobody was pleased with what the U.S. Army was doing
And tension was clearly in the air
Nobody felt comfortable
And people were becoming worried
Suspicious
These proud people were feeling scared
In the very land they had always lived free.
I spent the next few days with Willow and Lily
Walking through the grassland and forests
Looking for fuel and food
Waiting, I guess,
Our presence comforted each other
Reassured each other
All three of us had become very close
With all the time we had shared over the winter
It was exciting for me to recognize
How much Lily had already learned from her mother
She was very good at finding the herbs
That her mother would ask her to find for her
She would come back with a handful of them
And an even bigger smile on her face.
Willow told me that she had heard of other tribes
Being forced into slavery
To being held captive on certain land
The Government had given them
If they signed a Peace Treaty
I listened quietly,
For I had also heard such things
Further in the South and East
And was saddened from what I did hear
I asked Willow if she would want to live like that
And she said that she would not
She was born free and would obey nobody but the earth
I asked her if she would rather
Live off the land like a nomad
Always wandering more and more
Or if she would like to live more like Amy & Frank
She said she did not know
But that she did see the benefit of having land
To return to every year
Like Amy & Frank had
She asked me if I could build a house
Like Frank had built.
After four days and four nights
Mountain Chief returned with Moon Cow
And directly summoned me
And the other elders of the tribe
Into a gathering
He told us everything that had been talked about
How the other Chiefs didn’t trust
The U.S. Army men
That they threatened our whole way of life
And that if they got their way
It would be the end of us
He told us of visions he had listened to
And told us of his own vision
He himself had had one night
While camped along the river
He told us he had seen an owl
And had walked closer to ask him
What he was going to do
And the owl had told him
That when he sees the mouse
He then plans his action
In the middle of the night.
Mountain Chief told us that we would stay for two more days
On their traditional winter grounds
And that we would be moving
In the middle of the second night
So we all returned to our teepees
To begin preparation.