High Lonesome

"High Lonesome"

watercolor by Terry Clark

Winter comes effortlessly
on the High Lonesome Ranch,
where the snow piles up -
white on white,
and the elk scream,
in the frozen pine forests,
like banshees.


I imagine what it would be like
to stay there in the cabin -
enduring the brief ghosts

of miners, cowboys, and outlaws
humming in the corners.


I’d see the stars arranging
themselves around the
windows at night,
and resting on the trellises,
as if they were the white
and lavender Columbines
of summer.


And in the utter stillness,
I’d hold the moon close
to my breast and listen,
over and over again,
to the rising silence
of my thoughts.

THE DUAL

The Dual

oil on canvas by Merissa Gilbert Garrison

THE DUAL


Something’s at me today -
a tearing of form,
a stitching of words,
a definition of hours,
like a quiet folding
or unfolding
of the thinnest paper.


It’s like sitting with my back
against my own back and
trying to wrest something
from the sweat of my skin
and the salt of my bones.

SHORTENING THE GAP

SHORTENING THE GAP


All morning
I have been
watching doves -
covering a
silence of light
under their wings,
like a sacred secret,

while…

in the root cellar,
the beets bleed
from their constant
jostling in the bin,
cheeks pale and
withered now

and…

the potatoes, too -
with their wandering
eyes and mocking
grins, beg to be
buried again

now…

I find myself
thinking that
had my electrons
been arranged
just a little bit
differently, I might
have been a
mourning dove
hiding the light
under my wings

or…

a root vegetable
in a winter bin
spending my days
going soft in the head.

FROM THE CORNER OF A BLUE FOG LIFTING

Charcoal Drawing of Walt Whitman by Merissa Gilbert Garrison

FROM THE CORNER OF A BLUE FOG LIFTING
~In Imitation and Praise of Walt Whitman~

From the corner of a blue fog lifting,
Comes an old man bending.
It is the good gray poet dressing
The wounds of the young warriors,
Whom he longs to love.


Dear heart of the nation,
Keeper of democracy,
Man as literature,
Who better to sit by the unsettled
All through their somber night?


Who better to remove their blood soaked rags?
Who better to smooth their hair?
Who better to cry their suffering?
Who better to beseech death to come,
But one who will record it so sacredly?


From the corner of a blue fog lifting
Comes and old man bending.
It is the good gray poet turning
The heavy woolen blankets to find
The face of Christ, divine in death.


After these some hundred years it is
Still the same grass growing,
The same leaves turning,
The same wind blowing across the
Stagnant, bloodied, and flyblown fields.


It is the same celebration of yourself.
The same mist of your breath,
The same play of shadow and light.
It is the same song of yourself,
Sung from the same bearded lips.

THE EXTENT OF THINGS

THE EXTENT OF THINGS


here’s what
brought us to this -


that cold steel
that sought me out
and blood and bone
I suffered alone…


you kept vigil over me
in my troubled times
on the mountain
and you let me see
your beating heart,
however faint


your voice behind me
in a hush of love,
assuring me of eternity


and youth – transitory,
like any other thing
that is here for a
moment and gone,
was hidden away
under old forest trees
where the only light
shone from our eyes


one sweet day
after another
sweet day,
each longer
than a year,
and that special
grace holding off
imminent sadness


how many nights
did we confess our
sins but were never
absolved
we never needed
forgiveness
I know that now


we put our
heads together
and changed
the universe -


stars from
different galaxies
exploding into
a billion shards -
still traveling
through a dark

and endless space.

INDICATIONS

INDICATIONS


Breath is holding form now,
as the promise of sleep whispers
seductively in the cold fields.


Up on the hill, the wild pears
hide crystals of ice inside
their sweet white flesh -
as tendrils of pumpkin vines
lie in dark and delicate rot.


And weeds, that so carefully
multiplied themselves
in the heat, now shiver boney
and brown in the wind -
their rustling, a death rattle.


At the edge of the field,
high, in the interlaced
branches of a walnut tree,
a plague of gregarious grackles
marshal themselves.


They scold me - and scream
their disapproval of my
aimless wanderings.

THE TRUTH OF THINGS

THE TRUTH OF THINGS


with me
it’s not the
voices


sweeping me
with their
delicacy


it’s the ravaging
of the night
the digging


and the
fright and
the animal


sounds that shift
in the cavity
of my skull


like wind
or an endless
throb of thoughts


it’s the sifting
of earth beside
my dream


just there
a wall
between


where roses
let go their
petals quietly


in a
slight wind
of reverie


falling
at my feet
like concrete


with me
it’s not the
voices


it’s the
absence of
voices


that I hear
so piercingly
at night

A NEW GETHSEMANE

A NEW GETHSEMANE


Following Candide’s advice,
I cultivated my own garden
in rich black humus that was
as soft and as cool as the
earthworms that churned there.


I became a messiah
to the strawberry plants –
the expected deliverer of the fruit.
Day after day, I worried over them,
as if they had mortal souls to save.


They strayed from the righteous path and
climbed into the beans, tomatoes, and corn.
They were not interested in possibilities,
but wanted only to live for the here and now.


I absolved those murderous strawberry
plants that strangled the delicate snow
peas standing innocently in their way -
strangled them until their blossoms lay
white upon the ground like translucent
eyelids cut from tiny alien corpses.


Beyond tired, I would sit under
the tulip tree at night to rest.
I would try to forget the
strawberry plants for a while.
But always, looking toward
the garden, I felt restless -
as if I were about to be betrayed.

LAST PAINTING

LAST PAINTING


Crows rose like black rick rack
into a sky of blue violence,
flying
up from the golden wheat fields,
where boots had trampled
a sad and solitary path.


Listen to the screams of the crows
as they furiously flap their oil black
wings,
attempting to ascend the boundaries
of the earth, only to be caught
forever in a flight of vain striving.


The crows advance toward the
observer in a wave of
madness.
Here, the diverging roads lead
nowhere, and traveling them brings
only darkness forever – and peace.

GETTING BY

GETTING BY


In the cold regions -
in the sad and lonely
youth-killing regions,
where cheap paneling
is everyone’s answer,
the roads are arms and legs,
the hills are hips and thighs,
the fields are backs
and the destination
is the back of a head.


Here, the trucks and cars
don’t need oil and gas.
They are pushed along the roads
by young children who want
to be with their mothers.


The roll and drone
of the vehicles soothe
the ragged nerves and
relieve the sore muscles
of the mothers, who, for their
children’s entertainment, walk
back and forth for miles a day
casting stones into make-believe
streams, until they give out
on purple horsehair sofas.


With eyes closed against their pain,
the mothers are happy just to know
where their children are playing,
and fall into a deep sleep,
devoid of worry and fear.

OFFERINGS


I sit in a cool
triangle of shade
beside a sunny lake,
overtaken here and there
by lily pads, accented
with white blossoms sitting
in the lotus position.


I imagine gold fish,
as big as Buddha,
resting in the tangle
of roots below -
in silent meditation.


I remove my sandals and
walk along the grassy edge
of the lake, holy ground,
where clear water puddles
and pools in silence.


Suddenly, a sparrow lands
on a willow tree branch,
just above my head.
She sings and points
with a delicate wing
to the gibbous moon,
mysterious and pale,
in the late morning sky.


It is her gift to me.
What else can she give?
What more could I want?

IN RETROSPECT

Art by Donald Axleroad

IN RETROSPECT


In the dead chill of emptiness
where sound cannot vibrate
alone I remember being sick
in the mountains almost always
spring


Corners were cut close then
beside daffodil elixirs spilling
over onto chimney stones pitched
on the sides of steep hills burnt by
fires


I wonder now if those monsters
were merely chimaeras welcoming
me into paradise standing under
the flutter of peacock wings and
smoke


Or did they breathe and roar
and grow hair just for the travelers
who would pass them at light speed
rejoicing only to slump back again
sick

STORY FOR SPRING

STORY FOR SPRING


It was early spring,
when we walked
between the mountains,
bloodroot blotching
the ground like
patches of snow.
Chimney smoke
layered heavy in
the Appalachian valley,
obscuring the fruit
saplings in blue haze.


Over by the creek,
we came upon an
old mountain woman
eating turtle egg soup
in the shadows
of the beechnuts -
her mouth a darkened
slash in sallow skin,
eyes dark lined
and bright blue;
her hands two knots
and sweet smelling
from the black lye soap
she made from the
rendered fat of her pigs.


The soup and her smile
were both offered to us,
and we took both kindly –
the soup in delft bowls.
You slurped yours to be
polite and I spilled mine
out when I knew she
wasn’t watching me.


The old woman smiled
and wiped the grease of
the soup from her lips
onto her black mourning
sleeve, until it shone
like a mirror - reflecting
the shapes of the clouds
above us.


She laughed as she
hugged her shy old breasts,
and bade us to return one day.


Later in life,
when I was starving,
I dreamt of turtle eggs
rolling off marble sills
onto polished floors.
Like ping pong balls,
they bounced and rolled
into all the corners
of my existence,
piling up against
the doors and windows
of my youth,
falling and rolling
into my middle aged years –
soft, leathery, cream-colored
giant pearls, mystical
in their spherical-ness…
falling and rolling.

A Winter's Walk Ending With Poem

Numbing Occlusion


Winter’s frosty
breath hangs
on the portals,
and clings to
the windowsills,
with bony fingers
of inert ice.
It settles itself
on the stone walls
surrounding my life,
impeding my movements.

The Great Blue Heron

"HERON" by Merissa Gilbert Garrison

The Great Blue Heron


Against the delicate
dawn of a cold day,
the heron lifts
her head elegantly,
and points her beak
to the gray sky, as she
swallows a minnow -
silver, cold, and
shiny as a mirror.


Standing constant
and unwavering
in the icy mire,
she blinks back
dully against a
memory of days.


Suddenly,
she raises her voice
in a self-conscious
testimonial – a raucous,
guttural croak
that echoes over
the pond and
reverberates through
the exploded cattails,
and descends into
the dark muskrat lodge,
teeming with half-
frozen vegetation.


Then methodically,
she takes off from the
ice-edged pond and,
like a Gregorian chant,
she rises slowly
into the air.


Flying full winged
and ancient – she
rows over the tops
of the Scots pines,
brushing the night’s
snow from the tips
of their branches
into the wintry air,
where it glistens –
thousands of
sparkling crystals
shining in the
morning light of
the New Year.

THE LONGING

Artwork created by Merissa Garrison

THE LONGING


I was nearly asleep when the earth cast its
shadow on the winter white moon.


I could feel the past move over my shoulder
in a chill wind brought forth from the mirror.


“Enjoy Yourself!” the past rang out from a little
ancient bell that sits in a land of wings and lost poetry.


“Enjoy Yourself!” the past pleaded with me, as I slept
with the poets of antiquity biting at my heels and heart.


Once, my mother asked me to find her some moon roses
when she wasn’t feeling beautiful anymore.


“Enjoy Yourself!” That same bell had rung out to my mother
as she had graciously smiled a “company smile” at all of them.


“Enjoy Yourself!” It had pleaded with her, as she sat and watched
all the other women ask my father to dance with them.


And now that the moon has moved in beside me, and the poets
have given up the fight, I am at peace with all of this.


Anyway, I cannot think of it anymore…my mother’s New Year
spent in longing - for all those shining days along the river.

A WINTER LONG PAST

A WINTER LONG PAST


Trudging in snow as heavy as sand,
I pressed on toward those memories
Of lost winter games,
And breath forming crystals
On window panes
Like magic barnacles.


The bitter cold, then, made my legs
Burn and itch by the fire.
I raked the frozen cells
With my fingernails
Until trails of blood appeared.


My hair was damp and icy
Under the heavy wool
That imprinted vertical
Lines on my mind.


I had been the fox in the field,
Running in the heavy snow
To catch a rabbit slow.
Cunning in my slyness –
Running in my shyness –
I caught the sluggish ones,
Who lived nearby.


But, that was years ago.
Now the snow that I struggle through
Is just snow – a nuisance – a drudgery.
I watch as a single snowflake,
As huge as the moon, falls silently
On my infant’s warm cheek
And melts instantly away.

SYNTAX

"Poplars" by Monet

SYNTAX

across the pond stood
a paragraph of trees
punctuated by commas
of birds resting there
just long enough
to make me pause