Owlcast
Contents:
Desert Snow
Night Crossing
A Vienna Dream
Chaconne
Migration
Arctic Craniotomy
Once Upon a House
Mysteries
Octavio
Job Done
Rewriting the Border
Beth
Owlcast
On the Job
On Hold
Night Flight
Desert Snow
for Regina
I’ll fall where I damn well please.
Victoria Edwards Tester, Rain
There’s a place that snow turns into mist
where silence is a road
that runs where miners once
hauled ambition up from
the desert on wheels that complained all the way.
They opened the earth up long enough
to find there was less silver
than in the winter trees, and so they
loaded their wagons with disappointment
and went back down into
the heat with whiskey as the devil leading
the way. Juncos and siskins
gather now and pick
what they can from the cold.
Watching is belonging here for a few
December days in the company
of birds and frost a short drive from
desert on the foxes’ trail. The angels
overhead remember where
each of us has come from
before arriving in a country filled
with thorns and rocks patrolled by
coyotes. To each
a shadow falls from a hawk ever present
like a handkerchief dropped
by the gods
onto the paths we have chosen.
It isn’t ore that draws us, there
are no drills or shovels
for reaching into secrets the land possesses,
just the moments drifting down
at year’s end with a star
in every flake. The saints of the season
kick back and let the sycamore
shine white on white
while oaks and pines bear the weight
of memory in their boughs
until the sky cracks open for more snow
to fall, the now snow, the childhood snow,
the snow of joys and sorrows, snow
as a gift, snow as a razor, white, white,
white with the single red flash in
a string of stinging peppers hung against the snow,
snow that picks the desert as a home just
because it damn well wants to.
Night Crossing
Long ago, late stars and oars upon the water,
a mountain drank its own reflection
and all eyes turned
toward the other side.
The ferryman set course
for the flickering lights, everyone
a stranger to the next in line, a diplomat’s wife,
autumn’s child, a seeker
of truth in the dark. Will you go
all the way to the top? she asked, will you take
the cable car as far
as the sun? The night leaned toward her
and told her the fare. She belonged
to the neighboring country, her money
wasn’t worth the wind
that was restless that night, that rippled
the flags on freedom’s pier.
But what is the price of beauty,
she said as her shadow
raised her from her seat, how much
against eternity?
A Vienna Dream
I return to the city with unanswered questions
for luggage, unpack them
on arrival, and begin handing them out
to strangers. Everybody reads
what I give them, but tells me
they can’t help. I keep trying,
humiliating myself
from person to person with requests
for information so intimate
they elicit blushes
even from the taxi driver who has heard everything
and the priest whose memory for confessions
is impeccable. The old monuments
are still standing, although
they have been rededicated. I follow streets
whose twists and turns are mapped on my palm
only to end up at the place
I set out from, holding a ticket
paid for years ago, so I get on the next tram,
sit down and look out of the window
as snow falls and music
begins: the familiar melodies
that made Vienna famous
now played on fairground instruments
instead of violins. The ticket inspector
boards at the next stop, looks at a list
in his notepad, approaches me and places a hand
on my shoulder. He has a benevolent face,
with features similar to mine. First
he announces the penalty for an outdated ticket,
then he whispers that he slept once
with my grandmother, that it was good
and it was shameful, and he will forget about my fine
if I can keep a secret.
Chaconne
Here comes time dancing
on the strings: echo of the good days,
dissonance
of the sad. Through the window
there’s a bird far from its range and out
of season to be this far
north. The bow
drawn across the centuries
plays notes from an age as distant as the grosbeak’s
territory. It’s best
when the violin is as old as the music.
Not long
after daybreak with a desert chill still in the air
the thrashers, flickers, hummingbirds
bring day to life. The fast notes
stream into the light
and then harmony
is broken with a sudden scattering
that leaves the back yard silent.
First to return are the White-
crowned sparrows, followed by the goldfinches.
Just when a certain passage suggests
nostalgia the next one
opens up the sky
and what doesn’t belong here
suddenly does. The weathers are unknown
that blew the bird off course
and no-one ever knows
the forest
growing inside the violin.
Migration
Last night the Monarchs flew
through our television set
on their way to Mexico.
There was a dry rustling
of wings against the air
and little shreds of cloud
drifted out from the screen
as they crossed the Sierra Madre.
People in bright costumes gathered
outside and looked through the window
expecting them to land
so we asked them to come in
and wait with us. Together
we watched as the Monarchs streamed
into the room and settled
on the furniture. Chairs were trembling.
Orange swirled around us
while our guests began to sing
and played an accordion.
We were happy in two languages
then snow began to fall
from the ceiling, and some
of the Monarchs died. They fell
around our feet and we all
began picking them up, trying to warm
life back into them, blowing
warm breath onto the wings,
but the frost had its way
and only a few survived. We opened
the window to let them out. Most
of those remaining went
off into the night, over the rooftops
and away toward Mexico. Just one
stayed behind. We tried to guide it
toward the window but it would not leave,
coming instead to rest
on the painting of a forest
that hangs behind the table, the one
so true to life we sometimes hear
a tree scream as it falls.
Arctic Craniotomy
We begin by shaving a patch
on the Earth’s crown
and clearing space to cut
through the skull and remove
a small flap so as
to see inside and focus on exactly
where to penetrate. There’s bleeding
to stop, and oil
for the taking. Break through a layer
of bone and one of shale, into brain
where ideas are formed
deeper into the darkness
into rich reserves and memories
of the accident
waiting for release
every one a gemstone yearning
for light while the oil is restless.
The injury is ready
to be treated, precision’s work
while the drills go down so far no
anesthetic works to block
the pain the planet feels. Time
for stitching back the skin; it’s
numb at first but soon
the feeling returns, a month of two
and then the hair
grows back and the only signs remaining
are the dents and small
irregularities, while
for land there is no surgeon, only
scars that shine by moonlight
where the caribou wander in migration
ever drawn toward
the north shore of the future.
Once Upon a House
A summer night, water flowing
through the cooler at the window on the west side
and the fan blowing east to the kitchen.
All the windows open. Radio
tuned to starlight;
it might really
have happened like this, beginning
in the bedroom when
Mrs. gave permission to her husband
and he knew there was
no cure. Little traffic
on McDowell, less
along Third Avenue
and no one walking on Palm Lane
to hear the second shot.
In the wooden shed behind the house, any job
unfinished had to stay that way.
Hammer, hacksaw, work bench all
lay quietly as if
to dream, and even
the mirror was blinded.
Mysteries
About faith they were never wrong, the desert
angels. Black clouds
above the mission church, an owl
at night for each departing soul
and prayers for rain ride the thermals
every day. An echo, echo
marks the closing
of the wooden door as footprints
leave a dusty trail to midnight. Skunk time,
bats are saints flying in sacred space
and ringtails find a way
to bind their tails around belief.
Darkness is the miracle
that makes miracles
complete: the crops smile again, roadkill
comes back to life and inside
old adobe walls the organ plays without
the hands of a musician. Listen:
the notes
are walking on their toes
uphill on the stony trail
to be closer to the stars.
Octavio
He’s a thimbleful of jaguar mixed
with centuries of housecat.
Wears sleep as a disguise
suggesting domesticity, but once the clock
between his eyes ticks daylight
he wants and wants.
Sunlight on the mountain,
kibble in his dish, white bread
on the table, he’ll eat
anybody’s breakfast when the window
blinds are raised. Postprandially resting
with finches in focus
he adjusts the flow of his spine
and leaps to where their feeder hangs
on the safer side of glass.
Race from wall to wall, complain enough
is not enough by chewing
magazines as though they grew in jungles
and investigate
any open drawer or door to where
he’s not allowed. Breakages
are part of his identity, the collateral damage
of being alive. He must
be dreaming when he’s curled into a question
mark of fur, must remember
the unrecorded months
before unsheathing his claws to snag
each passing day as though
time were meant to bleed.
Job Done
Lightning on the mountain’s shoulder,
doves spilling out
from the clouds. There’s yard work to be done
with a cold edge to
the power saw. The goldfinches
back away when the motor asks where
it should begin. An introspective rain
is falling,
the bushes need trimming
to make space for springtime to pass through.
The motor coughs itself alive
and gives orders for the blade to work
in a language half machinery and
half from Sinaloa. It’s chilly for March, a long
way from home, and questions
continue:
Cut here? Leave this? Is there desert
where you come from? And everything is neater
than it was. The sky is dark when
it asks why Americans want to close
the border to those who come
to do,
on a rainswept afternoon, the jobs hung out
to dry. And away goes the truck, with sunset
in the taillights, as mockingbirds
sing the last daylight to sleep.
Rewriting the Border
It’s doves and thorns and sunsets
all the way into night, and blue mountains
float away at dusk. The border
isn’t what it used to be, no
Spanish is the Lovin’ Tongue or Marty Robbins
riding out of El Paso. Used to be
a line between the cowboy sky
and shops whose colors overflow
to make tourists feel as happy
as they couldn’t be at home. A hawk still hovers
with each wing in a different country
and ravens cross over with ease when they
dip and dive for joy, but there are
no visas for the jaguars
drawn by the scent of survival. Twenty pesos
for a dollar, undocumented sunlight,
new lives for old and corridos
from the radio playing
on an August roof in Phoenix. Taco Tuesday
in El Norte, deportation
on the menu every day. A flag of wind
still flying west of Lukeville, hammer tap
in a mechanic’s workshop, trucks
with hearts of steel between
Brownsville and Tijuana, highway never
sleeping, flan for dessert. A family lost
and a Rufous-capped warbler
in southern Arizona, slow river
leading a line of cheap labor
to the interstate; wasn’t that a time
when water was the passport
for anybody carrying their first home
in their pockets. Cheap labor on the move,
supply and demand, a cupful of rain
for a day digging fields. A trogon
calling from the oaks and sycamores. Summer
is his time before the sky opens;
fly south, fly north, never fly at all
for fear that dreams
come only in translation.
Beth
Cloudlight on the ridgeline, dust
yellowing below, blue wind
in all directions and a blind spot where
the sun should be. It’s been six months
since anybody saw the lady
whose mind escaped her when she fell
and the turquoise car in her driveway
is the only sign
of life today. She used to sit
outside and chat, took her dog a block
and back, complained a little
or a lot – it always was the same – and when
she came home from being cared for
turned a monsoon’s shade of mean.
Some days another car
parks next to hers, some days the silence
that surrounds her house
cries out for understanding. It must
be comfortable living
with air conditioning and cats, window blinds
down, listening for
a storm to break and rain
to be delivered to her door in cups
just large enough for her to stir some thunder in.
Owlcast
Here’s what we need to know today: the owls are well.
It’s mating season and they’re calling
close to home. Wings wide
beside the streetlamp, sudden glow
and plumage pale. There has to be
a house fire somewhere for the morning news,
has to be a presidential outburst
better suited
to a prime time sitcom
built around dysfunctionality.
New moon. Spirit voices. Midnight’s meditation.
Morning and a shower
of goldfinches out of the sun, first light
moving barefoot down the street and yesterday’s
headlines fading in the clouds.
There’s a war
and there’s a cease-fire, a scandal
breaking with high crimes
in low places. It’s rush hour, the traffic lights
are blinking: left-wing, right-wing, and the hawks
who roost beside the golf course
have a wing for each side
but they’re gliding
above it all, gracefully intent
on catching prey while foreign policy
becomes more foreign and executive orders
blow coast to coast in a storm. It’s a Madison Avenue
country with a Wall Street appetite
and news blowing in from all directions.
Fire, flood, deportation,
give me tariffs or give me
a voice from the spirit world, something soft
as feathers calling up the day.
On the Job
Late glow on the slopes, desert streaming
between the ridgeline
and the streets below, Friday afternoon,
T-shirts spotted with the stains
a day’s work leaves behind
and cashiers
at the supermarket scanning
what the weekend needs. Mourning doves
for restfulness, grackles for
opportunism and he who all day
wheels the carts
stacks another line to steer
back to the entranceway. So much
to be done: bread to bake and orders
to compile, restrooms to be cleaned
and a country to be run. A painter
splashed white is picking
up fruit,
a man dressed in black
casually steps between coffee
and the cookie shelves with a sidearm strapped
conspicuously at his side. So much
to be done:
wash the floors, make
appointments, secure domestic peace
and spray the fruit to keep it fresh. Almost
Saturday, but there’s work
for the workers to do even when the sunlight
looks nervous. No rest
for the doctors, mechanics, plumbers
and all
who believe that even
a rudderless ship reaches port in a storm.
On Hold
The sun has stalled
beyond the far horizon. All our representatives
are busy helping other customers . . .
The last star sparkles on a bed of dark wishes
. . . thank you for your patience. An errant wind
blows up and down the wash, runs
across the surface of the pond,
and hisses in the palm fronds
as they glisten
in the street lamps’ glow while the desert wants
the drought to end . . . please wait
for the next available rain . . . Nose to the moon
a coyote calls
the darkness down
to Earth. It does descend until
becoming thick enough to stir
and soft music on the line continues
with ice on every note. If you know
your party’s weather dial
now . . . The traffic lights
in Heaven are on red. Unspoken thoughts
collect interest where they rest
inside a mind. The silence is broken
when a woodpecker taps
on the moon. If you wish to make a call
hang up and try again . . . The crystal ball
that holds the future
cracks.
Night Flight
Two hours of the year to go
and one step from the back door into darkness.
Quiet except
for trial fireworks as the mountain
counts down. Time on a tightrope.
Across the wash a few windows
still awake and streetlamps on their toes
straining for a view into the future.
There’s an owl
perching in the yard
and when her moment comes
she flies at barely shoulder height,
dipping first then rising,
on the way
to where spirits meet
with a wingspan twelve months wide.
Acknowledgements:
Amethyst Review: Night Crossing, Mysteries, Night Flight
Black Poppy Review: Arctic Craniotomy
Canyon Echo: Migration
The Cactus Wren*dition: Chaconne
Eunoia Review: Once Upon a House
International Times: Desert Snow, Owlcast
Neologism Poetry Journal: Beth
Poem: Job Done
Punt Volat: On Hold
The New Verse News: On the Job, Rewriting the Border
Third Wednesday: A Vienna Dream, Octavio
