Tagged: the Earth

Why Some People Make It

I feel the weight
of a very large decision
left open to me, like
a container in the snow

I lie to a park ranger about
the temperature back home. 110 degrees!
You lie to an old lady about
how long we watched a flip-flop
flip in the glacial rapids, caught
in a whirlpool, not emerging. At least an hour!

Persistence, I point out. Arbitrarily
pointed persistence
Here, you say, passing me a stone
feel how smooth

Fish Gardens

those fish were caught by men
with their feet in water
those fish were caught by men
with their feet on land

in the middle, a couple of babies
pose for their wedding pictures
her dress is lumpy, leguminous
like it is actually cauliflower
his has a pocket for his phone

everything outside their body
is light. literal, actual light
light is decided upon in the brain
the brain is a folded leaf

this is can turn into anything
imagine we are fish swimming
in a man made water system
never have the edges to things
been more clear

Petrify

still caught up
in how we felt
about it earlier

the rarest stone
a person’s mind
being changed

I just planted seeds
in the garden. it is
snap pea, an easy seed

in a way I am checking
the earth’s pulse
I sit with it

having hope, but
waiting for it
I worry that thoughts

rarely occur
that aren’t hardening
the old ones

The Earth

I watch this kid
fold a world map tablecloth
around his body

and call himself The Earth
Like that is
his wrestling name

He plans to join
the downstreet kids
who have made a ring
out of old mattresses

Sheets tied together
someone’s actual mailbox
repurposed
as a turnbuckle. The other
turnbuckles

are city-issue trash cans
Kids are leaping
off them, yelling names
that they have chosen
for themselves. Soldier Man!
The Hurricane!
Robot Shark!

The Earth readies, and
hurdles down
Likely he’ll get pummeled
but that’s why
any of this happens. He
runs into the sun, laughing
the arctics tied
around his neck

I think about the times
or time I was a boy
How when a boy runs
(or fights, or loves)
he flares out his world
like a cape

More On the Sun

I think it can see
how fragile we are
There’s a newly paved road
on the old road
Over and over. The sun
a twitching
of blind spots
The sun itself
is a blind spot
What lights there?
We change lanes
mostly guessing
No wonder our Earth
has its face
to the sun
like it does, at all times
pacing around it
Maybe the sun
was born
with some disease
that requires watching
An impulse control
issue. Look at us, driving
places. Honking
like geese
in such
well-meaning light
What must we look like
to them, up there?
The irritable
The spitting
Our lives an array
of outbursts
The chaos
of joy
falling softly
on some other planet. Pink
and blue murmurs
Gold standards. Our boxes
for looking directly
at the sun?

Crosswalk Balloon

a balloon bounces
across a red light
on the rocks
not popping

the cars go, they too
on their balloons
on the rocks
not popping

each day, I feel
another day
coming

not like these balloons
which could go
any minute

I wonder if somewhere
out in space

there’s a street
our planets bobble across
not popping

and if
the light
will ever change?

The Truth According to Bigfoot

Are there
two
women
or
a vase

A potter
or
masseur
of clay

A carousel
or
drill
on turn
by horses

All of us
more
than just one
thing. All of us
until
we are dead

All of us
liars. Liars
in love
with
beautiful stories
about
truth

And truth?
It is
something
we might
have seen

Something
walking upright
in the
forest
like a man

We Were Here

An injured hawk circles the circumference
of its tether, resting occasionally on a glove
attached to the fence. Clouds gallop over
mountains, shedding their snow like loose summer hair
I’ve seen no people between Moab and New Mexico
Just the signs of people. There’s a town called
Many Farms where TB medication was tested in the 50s
Several hand-written signs for Xbox repair
A stray dog at the Conoco eating what remains
of a sandwich. The school sits half-excavated
from the rock. You or I take pictures from the car
I wonder where the people are, and if a land
so unforgiving is ever asked

Devil’s Garden Utah

we climbed on rocks
before stopping to watch them

and wandered into a dozen people’s
pictures of a hole, forever skipped
as places to sit that are taken

until the night, when we got lost
we barely made it back
by following the hardness
of where other people had stepped

you stood in the center
of a frozen pond, a girl in a dress of ice
frilled with directionless fish

that saw me grow calm,
fluid in the face of your danger