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WRITING COSTA RICA February 16 to 25, 2012 Break your writers block! Inspire your muse! Reclaim your passion and creative expression!

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Poem

I MAKE LOVE TO THE WORLD (SONG TWENTY-SIX )

(From the forthcoming book of Chalcedony songs.)

Ashes of burnt roses, ashes of broccoli,
ashes of hydra, ashes of proton plasma.

Grass pushes two green waves
up the hill. Wind's tiny hands
roam angles on your face.

I make love to the world.

Oak trees: ashes.
Scattered boulders: ashes.
Sheep skin: ashes.
Pitted iron wheel: ashes.

The sun goes out in a flash. For half a half
second the hills all around light
green.

Later the sky streaks itself
with a meteor. Then unstreaks.

You're not dusted with ashes.
Ashes filter through our illusion skin
from inside.

Through my head my parents dance
and behind them a stream of ancestors.

Teenager leans over a glass counter
and I exhale. Mist condenses into signs,
how to caress the world.
How to become a man.

This is a trust issue and trust
issues
between worlds mostly unseen.
How to see what is?
How to ratchet this poor sight?

Horn honks and from a car window
a stranger waves. His palm cuts
the air into head-size chunks.
Homeless lady talks and why not?
Her lips outline a swash "S."
Cat's paws appear overnight
musty red scatterings on sand.

Rusty rebar by a clear
grocery bag, bent at right angles

Look at the picture!

Your eye sockets frame a picture
that reveals every thing
precisely
in place every
moment. Furry texture
the visual of the conjoining buzz.

I make love to the world.

Orange poppies rise into triangular valleys
in flurries. Dudleya's yellow-pink stalks
dot clefts in a rocky cliff.

This is a perfect view of the world.
This is dewachen.
This is walking in beauty.
This world is a beautiful place.

Thunderhead grows white puffs and
when you turn back
lightning crashes.
How strange this is all ashes.

Grandmother points to imprints
of worn soles in footpath dust.
Orphan child trucks through a rain of ash,
fists clenched. In-chocolate youths laugh
and look away, their bodies humming.

Ashes of the big bang.
Ashes of 10,000 trillion novas.

I make love to the world.

How easy when orange warblers
sing in pine branches.
How easy when earth moves
and the sky blanches.
How easy
when you stroke soft ashes
on my chest and I throat lyric
tones of my ashen song.

I MAKE LOVE TO THE WORLD (SONG 26): from the forthcoming book of Chalcedony songs.

On Clive's blog, Sudden Wind and Moonlight

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"Best Writing Teacher": East Bay Express, 2006