Archive for contemporary poetry

Mary at the Nativity

The angel said there would be no end
to his kingdom. So for three hundred days
I carried rivers and cedars and mountains.
Stars spilled in my belly when he turned.

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Song

Blue night
and the coyote knows
what happens when you’re not there.

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October

I used to think the land
had something to say to us,
back when wildflowers
would come right up to your hand
as if they were tame.

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My Mother’s Teeth

came out at night
from the time I was a child.

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Lights Out

Now the moth can stop
beating his head
hopelessly against the lampshade,
and I can forget about words that won’t come.

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Ascension Day

On good days
it appears we are all ascending.
Our spouses,
beginning to complain about something or other,
pick up the soggy dish-sponge instead.
The mail arrives on time.
We look at our children’s homework
and notice their spelling has improved.

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Prayer of the Turtle

Oh, Lord, Most High,
You surely must have thought
I needed permanent protection, and
I do thank you for the intricate
design I am told I wear on my back.
I only wish this house I carry
did not weigh quite so much.

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A Very Little Thing

A very little thing is rolling
down the street at dawn,
some little yellow thing, a lemon,
rolling down the center
of the street from the little
grove just up the hill.

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Proposal in a Modest Meadow

Monkeyflower crowds the foot of a waterfall
(those buttercup faces, up to something),

and a dipper flies the bends of the creek
down to a veil of mountain hemlock.

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Just after Groundhog Day

Just after Groundhog Day, summer begins
in Santa Barbara. Keen smells of blossoms
layer the air, the yellow bloom of mustard
weed and sourgrass and acacia fulfilling
their own prophecy on every side.

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