Dolores Park, Sunday Afternoon

It sickens you:
"Just look at them."
My eyes bore into her,
all parasol and overstuffed
black lace, pudgy pale
fingers flying over her iPhone.


"They've ruined this place."
I disagree, but in my heart
chide the Ohlone for not speculating
in real estate.  "The only killings
they ended up making
had antlers or blowholes."


There is a lie I want to be true
but I cannot distract you
from hating the only town
that would have you.
"I hear Buena Vista
is an old Indian burial ground."


You ignore me and frown
as though in reply
to what you wanted me to have said.
Gay men in speedos
litter the fruit shelf around us.
I secretly make plans to visit the dead.

Fort Ross

Pale, thin fog, white
weaves like soft, sheer lawn
along the rock-strewn coast.


We swing past the fort;
its onion dome
is an odd Russian touch


to an oddly pristine scene,
devoid of gulls or seals.
Not even sea shells


are to be had today.
No, not one.
Solitary, a man runs


towards us from so far away.
Vast, this world shows us itself --
vast and freeing.


We are not seeing
where we are as we are
(for once) but as it is.


All we need today is set
to the sound of lapping waves
as the sun shatters over swathes of gray.

Drought

I

Pregnant sky hanging baleful and gray,
draped between mountains, stay

forever a promise that we may
be drenched by a mothering rain.

II

Yellow yarrow trembling in this cold breeze,
tell my prayers to God.  Spring

storms hush the rustle of pine trees.
We may yet have our way.  Let's see.

Bear Valley

Honey bees bustle over purple rosemary blossoms:
industry in the setting sun -- it is March.

The air is clear and static.  Awesome
distance pours a sterile blue sky

Through a mapped valley green with spring.
Budding oak trees, shameless, naked white,

totter off towards chaparral-draped mountains.  Birds sing.
A black-tail deer mounts the nearest ridge.

Hearing this place is not a choice.
Do not strain to listen to its voiceless voice.

No Return

Hours slip fast.
Give back
the gloaming light
(purple, pink, bright.)
No one knew it would be the last.

When Nyx descends
her raiment bends
a milky river of diamonds over our heads.

Such nights as these
are cathedrals in which we grieve.
Cry for childhood's end.

This is how we spend
our final moments all:
silent, looking up.
Our mouths fall
open in defeated awe.

Decoding

One could choose to interpret
the embroidered naked men
in the river (nobility gently
ignoring the swimmers)
as an expression of reverence
for the present day.

The lady-in-waiting
whose tapestry this is
seems to be saying,
"It is impossible to be wrong
as long as one is with God."
The land is brown, the grass, tan:

A world made correct by a needle in a woman's hand.

(Stitched by one who arrived at the convent,
somewhere in Normandy, under a shadow.)