19 march 2009 2am suisun marsh

someday something's going to happen -
some pipe is going to freeze - something will bring me to my knees -
i'll fall to the ground and i won't rise.

i can watch the news to see how people die.
mostly i've tried to hide from
that thought -

the great loss of sight.
never more to see these trees,
this sky -
this ocean that climbs.
those eyes -

i look up and find
war machines circling the
divide between their world
and the next -

in the next world
we tell stories
of when the planes
ceased to fly
we forget the dark cities once
blotted the night sky -
and then -
then we still
will be born
and still die.

o! west

1

o west - o great and fine skied land of discontinuity and
when was the last time we danced this way -
tell me the times that each pine felt loved by you
and these stars over mount baldy - mount whitney
mount flagstaff - mount holbrook and
the glittering dawn over apache nation

and take this time at the hollywood pier spilt milk spilling
into the sea-
waiting now for that ocean breeze to blow
great horned owl singing on the wires
the news of that world - diablo snow capped and the
night is rich - clouds fly loosely in abandon
and repose

like this:
three deer in the road
two are standing
one is dead
two stand above, looking
at the one who is dead
the one who is dead is dead
and then
headlights come and the two bound to the side and up
the steep flank
of the cliff made of bones - and the last one knows
is the bright squeal
and listen to this:
great white bird smashed
but alive
on the side
of the road
snatched from the margin -
dies by injection.


2

what we mean is to
build an environment
and what we dont know
is the reason -
maybe its this that
makes us seem foreign

approach the elk around each bend -
the dips in the road are for you.
a raven pair circle elephant rock -
raven leans over
and liquid beats drop.


3

we're under the lip of
the western edge -
o! great western sea -
o! carver of land.
the stream you follow to get to the strand
for over a year had ended in
sand, in a sink -
now has cut a new path
to the surf

why not feel chastened by the limitless world?

too much talk of the
void -
say, 'what void?'.

so we listen to the raven -
we anticipate what follows:
we look through windows -
we read the leaves
at the bottom of
the tree.


4

a couple dozen sanderlings
fifteen willets -
two red tailed hawks describe
horizontal eights
against the bluff -
those ravens i spoke of -
a common loon.
a half dozen or more
adult pelicans plunge here
and there for food - some
are in their courtship plumes.
surf scoters pepper the swell.

elk droppings
in the road -
a kestrel kiting and the wide
bright sea -

here,
we stand on prominences.

we say:
the pacific.