Christmas Baking

Lake Burton, Georgia 

December 24, 2009

I drift awake in a strange chair 

alone in an unfamiliar room 

bathed in late-day light. 

My running pundit mutters, confused 

as phantom insights flash and fade 

from the realm of unrecovered dreams.

Silhouettes of small birds 

streak by the high window 

that frames a tiny swath of sky. 

As scattered moments slowly cohere, 

I sense again the vague regret –

another slice of life gone by. 

But fire warms the gray stone hearth 

and glad voices drift from the kitchen 

in busy rhythms of conversation. 

The day regroups. 

The season peaks. 

The sun resumes its cycle. 

Through stale corridors, 

sharp currents of cinnamon and savory

carry hints of transcendence come – Christmas is baking. 

Inner Sunset, Morning Rain

Japanese Tea Garden, San Francisco, California
March, 2016

My little girl leads me through her grown up world 

of townhouses, trolleys, bodegas, cafes, and corner 

stores. The smell of coffee cuts the soggy breeze. 

Elsewhere the world churns. Fierce preachers poke 

ancient wounds and politicians scratch the scabs. 

Privilege feasts as Lazarus lies by padlocked gates. 

Here, wizened men once interred in wartime camps 

mingle with young mothers in yoga tights wielding 

late-model strollers down the kinder sidewalks.

The streets of Inner Sunset are baptized in morning 

rain. A small shop bears the sign - Make loaves not 

war. We are far from the breaking madness, beyond 

the contagion of hate. The implosion is put on hold. 

In the face of chaos Mohammed went to the mountain 

and Buddha withdrew. Even Jesus retreated. We enter 

the garden and drift through a feather mist where sweet 

plumes scent the heavy air. The city recedes. We trace 

slow paths through flora that once graced Eden. White 

blossoms litter the soft moss carpet beneath a baby cedar 

grove. Gray rocks anchor grass islands in a raked sand 

sea. We step to the trickle of cobblestone creeks and glide 

past Koi ponds.  A bronze Buddha, old as our country, 

casts a placid spell on those who pause. The prophets 

all returned. Mohammed spoke the Koran, Siddhartha 

woke the Sangha, and Jesus preached the Kingdom. 

We turn home together, bearing the grace of soft rain 

in a parched land. Peace awaits in the folds of time. 

End Times, Again

Athens, Georgia
November 30, 2016

Light drains from another year.
The hymn of insects dwindles. Days
diminish. Cycles reset. End times

come again. Today, the passion-vine
bears yellowed fruit and withered
leaves, which late-season caterpillars

scour in vain. Soon, the chrysalis
succumbs to cold. Bumblebee colonies
collapse. Inseminated queens abandon

their hives. Orphaned workers wander
brown fields in search of nectar. Perhaps
an aster persists somewhere. But home

field has gone to seed. Beside the dry
depression that nursed the new spring
salamanders, Lurid sedges flaunt battle

spikes. Wild rye wields tan spears. Dark
pods hang from Senna. The tips of thistles
launch parachutes into November wind.

Ironweed bristles, grasses bend. Blue
stems wave soft tufts like tattered prayer
flags. Today, the hope of new life lies

buried in root and seed bank, tucked
in mud and sleeping queens. But to us
now, the season of culling is come.

Lurid sedge, photo by Don Hunter

Morning After My Fifty Year Reunion

South of Fayetteville, NC
October 8, 2017

A soft rain bathes the dry pines of Carolina
as I drive down a Southern road
into another autumn.

Farewell old loves. 
You spoke your truths, and I
shared mine. The world bleeds for something new. 

Cloudless Sulphurs flutter over brown fields,
across winding back roads, onto
goldenrod shoulders.

Goodbye, perhaps 
forever. It is, after all, autumn; 
for some, their last now fades to sepia.

The sun will still sparkle from roadside puddles
and woodland sunflowers will shine
like a fresh van Gogh.

Friends, you rode 
the fiery horse to far-off wars, 
or wandered wild roads without a weapon. 

Today, a living mist soothes the trees.
Stubble covers sandy fields.
Soy fades to pale.

Would you tame 
the feral soul at last? Friends, 
we have striven. Soon, with grace, we yield.

Aftermath

Athens, Georgia
September 12, 2017

When the outer band of Irma arrived, we lit a candle 

and rode the night storm in a soft cinnamon glow. 

By dawn it was done. We emerged to the scent of snapped limbs 

and mangled trees that line the road in tangles of green. 

The new world is unwell. Unripe mast is harvested too soon. 

Green acorns cling to the crotches of white oak leaves. 

Small nodules bead the broken stems beneath the leaves of a southern red. 

Let them return their tannins to earth.

In the forest, root balls of red clay mark new clearings – 

another northern red oak down, upended by weight and wind. 

Saplings of green ash begin their sprint to light. 

The pungent air is ripe with rot. 

Blue-green needles of a loblolly stand mingle with conelettes of shortleaf pine. 

They spike the nose with an acrid clean. 

Green gum balls litter dirt with a latent grace. 

Still air is sweet, but laced with death. 

Here in the gently rolling Georgia hills, 

her new growth woods rising over red clay, 

her ragged fields recovering from cotton, 

the forgotten graves of warriors and slaves – 

our world is a shattered, fragrant place.

We live in the wake of weaponized storms.

Beyond our borders I see bodies littering beaches, 

and the tortured eyes of a lost child wracked by what we unleashed. 

The wind has softened. 

Light slants through scudding clouds. 

Death sparkles in shafts of sun. Some things will never wash clean 

so we light a scented candle and sing. 

Heart Scars

Gwinnett Medical Center, 
Lawrenceville, Georgia
August 14, 2017

The surgeon said I have a raw heart,
that where he worked his high-tech
wire would heal and bear no scars.

But all he had were images,
renderings of my left atrium
processed by silicon circuits,
color coded for conductivity,
rogue circuits splotched red
across my pulmonary veins.

They fairly danced with life,
made my heart skip stutter-
step beats. That was before.

Now the big veins stand inert,
gun-metal gray, dull as lead
pipes, bare limbs of an ancient
oak shattered by a blue bolt,
frozen and fossilized — this
the price for too much life.

I walk through new life
with a hole in my heart.
I bear invisible tattoos.

Can a body hit sixty-eight
without a rough mark
clawed across the vitals?
Could a soul survive so long
in the land of incarnation
without the grace of scars?

Technology is miracle. Hospitals
crawl with angels. Doctors patch
bodies for a few more rounds.

But raw hearts ride currents
no machine can measure. Sinking,
I am buoyed by a thousand ‘thoughts
and prayers.’ Flailing, I am borne
again to source or abyss. Surely
I will drown in a sea of grace.