tomita park, asahikawa

enter 
face 
stone basin water temple
clap hands three times

throw water
on grey stone guardian lions

red, orange, yellow leaves
fall 

into sky mirror reflections
escaping fresh snow dust 

old people shuffle along earth path
wearing intricate kimonos

designed by
stone 

Asahikawa loom creators 
weave wool season colors
into old mountain fabrics 

protecting brown bear families 
preparing their winter solitude

bow low 
o mountains
o west wind
o glorious lions 
at the entrance 

 

cross a border

I’m sitting in the air conditioned nightmare of an office and the maintenance chief comes by and tells me a little story.

He’s worried. He’s married to a woman from Mexico living here illegally. She migrated to the Pacific Northwest supporting herself doing migrant labor. Picking fruit. Delicious apples.

They met through friends, dated and got hitched. She doesn’t speak Engish and now they pay a lawyer BIG BUCKS to handle her immigration case getting exercise jumping through INS hoops and she’s preparing to head south and the chief’s afraid to death she will cross the border and never return.

In Mexico she broke down after her first husband, depressed about lack of work, sat down in front of her one night, opened a bottle of rubbing alcohol and drank the whole thing. He started foaming at the mouth, went into spasms and died in her arms as his liver broke down. 

That’s why she left.

sacred contracts

When she was ten she was forced to witness a relative torture her cat to death.

The cat was put in a bag and buried under her house.

She had never been under there.

One day she crawled under the house and found the soft dirt. She left it alone. 

Later, she was the victim of sexual abuse.

As a woman she dreamed where, as a child, she was surrounded by women in a sacred circle until she lost all her fear, all energy to them. 

She knew she chose her parents in this world. She carried their pain.

As a child she forgot by looking forward. 

chimayo

its been years since 
I’ve thought of you

it occured now 
when I
smoothed out Two Gray Hills 
wool carpet

lured into red sunsets 
splitting pure white
dazzling yellow light 
from the center

remembering cold january mornings
weaving our way past snow lined adobe

gathering blessed sand, red chillis
seeing Navajo weave their magic

we purchased magic
rolled it into our passion
ate our dreams
carried it on our journey 

toward separation
warp, weft fibers glistening beside 
sage induced fires 

curling new mexico stars
pressing desire's surface
smoothing out Chimayo 

breathing shuttles click clack 

memory scissors escape
toward edges of you
screaming on fifth floor
suicide watch time

the joy of it

"The main thing is to write for the joy of it.

"Cultivate a work-lust that imagines its haven like your hands at night, dreaming the sun in the sunspot of a breast. You are fasted now, light-headed, dangerous.

"Take off from here. And don't be so earnest."

 - Seamus Heaney
shhh! no running in the library!  Read more…