Yes, I Know Om

Once I stood by a rushing

bouldered mountain stream

spring melt from the Cascade range 

and someone whispered 

into my ear and told me 

they were now my words 

and those words became one 

with the sound of the rushing water 

and the wind and the trout we were luring 

laughed at our vain attempts 

and the sky laughed and the world 

seemed very small and round 

and fit in the palm of my hand 

and my hand rose and I opened 

my hand to watch the world dance into the sky 

and the sky become one with my hand 

and I with my hand and my hand 

with my body and my body 

with the earth and the earth with the sky! 

—

Three for the Mouse

 1.  Mouse’s Nest—John Clare 

"I found a ball of grass among the hay 

And progged it as I passed and went away; 

And when I looked I fancied something stirred, 

And turned agen and hoped to catch the bird— 

When out an old mouse bolted in the wheats 

With all her young ones hanging at her teats; 

She looked so odd and so grotesque to me, 

I ran and wondered what the thing could be, 

And pushed the knapweed bunches where I stood; 

Then the mouse hurried from the craking brood. 

The young ones squeaked, and as i went away 

She found her nest again among the hay. 

The water o’er the pebbles scarce could run 

And broad old cesspools glittered in the sun."

—

2.  The Meadow Mouse—Theodore Roethke 

I

"In a shoe box stuffed in an old nylon stocking 

Sleeps the baby mouse I found in the meadow, 

Where he trembled and shook beneath a stick 

Till I caught him up by the tail and brou†ght him in, 

Cradled in my hand, 

A little quaker, the whole body of him trembling, 

His absurd whiskers sticking out like a cartoon-mouse, 

His feet like small leaves, 

Little lizard-feet, 

Whitish and spread wide when he tried to struggle away, 

Wriggling like a miniscule puppy. 

Now he’s eaten his three kinds of cheese and drunk from his 

bottle-cap watering-trough— 

So much he just lies in one corner, 

His tail curled under him, his belly big 

As his head, his bat-like ears 

Twitching, tilting toward the least sound. 

Do I imagine he no longer trembles 

When I come close to him? 

he seems no longer to tremble. 

II 

But this morning the she-box house on the back porch is empty. 

Where has he gone, my meadow mouse, 

My thumb of a child that nuzzled in my palm? — 

To run under the hawk’s wing, 

Under the eye of the great owl watching from the elm-tree, 

To live by courtesy of the shrike, the snake, the tom-cat. 

I think of the nestling fallen into the deep grass, 

The turtle gasping in the dusty rubble of the highway, 

The paralytic stunned in the tub, and the water rising, — 

All things innocent, hapless, forsaken."

—

3.  Master Mouse—Hanque O (aka jim)

"Her burrowed den she lines with tawny grass 

From summer’s scythe; it, the envy of all 

Who dwell above the earth, so snug and warm 

In winter, so cool come with’ring August; 

She, the master builder of the meadow, 

Matriarch that finds her man, uses him, 

Then goes to ground to spawn her bitty brood; 

Of lurking prey, her native instinct tells 

Her when to juke and do the end-around, 

Her wit outwits the wittiest; and so 

Her little pups she does raise to fine young 

Things, and like all of the maternal ilk 

Watches them outgrow the teat, shoving-off 

For greener climes. For her, the empty-nest."

—

Song of Ecstasy

“Oh,” sighs the Parson, and sits upon a stump. 

“They are gone. The stars are gone.” 

“Gone,” says the creek. 

“Gone,” says the bird. 

“Gone,” says the wind. 

“Oh!” cries the Parson, “this will not do!” and rises from his stump. 

“We must bless this dawn with song!” 

“With song!” cries the creek. 

“With song!” cries the bird. 

“With song!” cries the wind. 

“Sing!” entreats the Parson, and stands upon his stump. 

“Sing! ‘Extase!’” 

“Extase,” says the creek. 

“Extase,” says the bird. 

“Extase,” says the wind. 

“Non!” scolds the Parson, “sing—Extase!” 

conducting from his stump. 

“Extase!” sings the creek. 

“Extase!” sings the bird. 

“Extase!” sings the wind. 

“Oui!” lauds the Parson. “Extase!” and leaps into the air, 

“Oui, extase, extase, extase!” and leaves this earthen world. “Extase!” 

“Goodbye,” sings the creek. 

“Goodbye,” sings the bird. 

“Goodbye,” sings the wind. 

“Non!” comes a voice. “I am the sky. I am the cloud. 

I am the rain that greens this blesséd place. 

I am the meadow. 

I am the wildflower. 

I am the song of ecstasy!” 

“Oui!” says the creek. 

“Oui!” says the bird. 

“Oui!” says the wind. “He is the song of ecstasy!

—

Macbeth

I see a field of clotted blood. 

This is my postmortem— 

Carts hauling off the dead, the wounded. 

Ears roaring with silence but for moans. 

Victory upon my shoulders 

in all its freshly hewn fetidness— 

Entrails of horse and man entwined. 

This is my victory, my honor? 

Banquo, what?

The day is ours! 

So it is. Tell me, my friend, what have we gained?

What now but fate, and tomorrow?

—

It's a Long Way

It’s a long, long way 

It gets further every day . . . 

—Ralph McTell, lyric, From Clare to Here

I set out walking. 

I walk past a pasture and a creek. 

I walk past an old house painted white. 

I walk past a rusted-out pick-up truck body. 

I walk past a feed mill. 

I walk past a Wal-Mart.

I walk past a Ford dealership and a walk-in clinic. 

I walk past a county line. 

I walk past an old airport and a trailer park. 

I walk past a vacant lot and a junk yard.

I walk past a Quik Mart and a tire shop.

I walk past a vineyard and an orchard.

I walk past a mare and her colt. 

I walk past a feed yard. 

I walk past another feed yard.

I walk past a cowboy feeding hay to black angus cattle. 

I walk past a yippin’ blue-heeler. 

I walk past ten thousand acres of winter wheat comin’ on.

I walk past the Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. 

I walk past Joplin, Missouri, birthplace of Langston Hughes. 

I walk past Lamar Missouri where Harry S Truman’s father rented out mules to poor ole farmers.  

I walk past many a church. 

—

I walk past Springfield, Missouri where they lynched three black man 

on April fourteenth, nineteen aught six and are none too sorry about it. 

I walk past Sedalia, Missouri, where Scott Joplin taught piano.

I walk past Saint Louis, Missouri, the Gateway to the West, but I’m going east. 

I walk over a bridge over the great Mississippi River. 

I look for Huck and Jim, but I don’t see them.

I walk past East Saint Louis, Illinois, home of Miles Davis. 

I walk past Springfield, Illinois where Abraham Lincoln stood tall.

I walk past a field of corn stalks, and another of beans waiting for harvest.

I walk past a truck stop on Route 66 in Dixon Illinois. 

I walk past Joliet prison, home of Joliet Jake, and others less comical.

I walk past the Manor Inn, the Come on Inn, the Holiday Inn Express. 

I walk past more McDonalds than I can count.

I walk past Dwight Illinois, home of Montana Watson

I walk past a high school. 

I walk past football players standing behind the bleachers smoking cigarettes, paying no mind to their sweethearts, wearing letter jackets that hang loose. 

—

I walk past Indiana. I walk past Ohio. 

I walk past trucks stops and railway sidings.

I walk past skyscrapers and food pantries. 

I walk past homeless folk, and teenagers huddled-up against the cold on street corners.

I walk past a man playing Bird for quarters. 

I walk past a bus stop. 

I walk past a train depot. 

I walk past Reading, Pennsylvania, home of the sagacious Wallace Stevens. 

I walk past Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

I walk past Arlington Cemetery.

I walk past Washington, DC. I shake my head in disbelief.

—

I walk past New York City. 

I walk past Wall Street and Harlem and the Apollo. 

I walk past Broadway and Times Square.

I walk past Ground Zero and tent cities.

I walk past a lot of sad people and a lot of happy people and a lot of people who don’t look one way or another. 

I walk past JFK and LaGuardia. 

I walk past Rutherford, New Jersey where Mr. William Carlos Williams doctored the sick. 

I walk past Harleigh Cemetery, in Camden, NJ, where Mr. Walt Whitman is buried, where I say, this is the best I can do, and this is homage.

I walk past lilacs.

—

I catch my breath and set out again. 

I walk to the Port Terminal and stop. 

I look across the ocean.

I have come this far, and Clare, you are still beyond reach.

—

It’s a long way between here and there. 

—

Hole in the Wall, Summer Storm

(Glacier Park, Montana)

We find ourselves 

where we take ourselves. 

This magic carpet of wildflowers 

does not fly, it is our will, step by step, 

that brings us here. 

You lay on your back, one leg crossed 

over a bent knee, swinging freely, 

a blade of sweet grass between your lips 

in contemplation of ripening clouds. 

In the distance thunder treads, 

advancing footfalls of Monsieur Nimbus. But for now 

we are here, in forfeit of nothing. 

We reap the reward of our effort— 

we are not children, we know what we are about. 

- 

Fat drops break our reverie. 

Fat, juicy drops 

worthy of a quick dash to the tent 

and shelter from the storm— 

but no, this ionized air is to be embraced, 

and if Monsieur Nimbus should be mates with Thor 

then there is no hope, we are lost. 

Wet we are, cold and shivering, wetter we will be. 

But we have come for this, 

it will not kill us, or it will. 

Here we are penniless, blood diamonds 

could not save us, but this is rich. 

We have come too far for retreat. 

We embrace the storm, and each other.