To The Grass

Angelic stone women beckon, smiling.
I brush their mossy feet, my fingers burn.
I touch the markers of our buried children,
My cup spilled, the glass clear, I beg to learn.
The wine dark fluid rills into the green
Earth, staining the strewn seeds of the unborn.
A sour black bottled rage, my spleen envenomed,
Cries for all children deprived of their form.
Now teach us each to walk on and listen
To the grass growing, for it does not mourn.
Haunt us with the memory of the fire.
Remember us thus: our faces ashen,
We who have been through this and did not burn.
A garden of statues in the place of our pyre.

Cleaning frenzy

The trouble with house guests is that they inspire one to cover up any evidence of lazyness or lapsed lifestyle with a vigorous scrubbing of floors and rearangement of furniture. Masha's brother and Leilani, an old freind of theirs, have been staying over, the catch is that they are staying at Denny's house rather than ours. nonetheless both houses have been scrubbed and reorganized, with some favorable results. There are however hidden consequences, which none of us would have guessed, Objects piled and stacked in new configurations making formerly accesible essentials unreachable. Of course Jim And Leilani are both nice people. But they are my parents age and so mostly I feel left out. I had a nice talk with Leilani though about her grad school experiences in France, and how Masha's "scene" in Cambridge helped to ground her and gave her a point of reference. From talking to her I realize how little i know of My own mother and how much of my own life I've missed.
The next project is to clean up this hard drive and prepare for a new one 30-gig!

ganesh

The nicest thing about people is that they say "thank you,” For what ever it is that you gave them. Even if it is the finger or a long ramble about your pain and troubles. Of course people sometimes pay you back in kind: eye for eye and a bow for a blessing. I've had to listen to a man's whole automotive history just because I answered his "whassup" with "car trouble;" (why else would any one ride the bus in St. Pete?)
A while back, I sold a woman an elaborate Nepalese medallion with six yin yang Tao symbols. I didn't remember her name but the sale was complicated. She wanted to know specific information about the meaning, energy and power of the amulet. I told her some ways that she could make up her own meaning since she had it for a gift. Her friend was in the hospital. All she could do was be there for her. A gift like that is a way of leaving your presence behind. (Remember me when you wear this) the more I down played the power of the amulet the more her interest grew. The truth is that I can't sell a thing; only help you to see why you want it; and only if (god willing,) you want to see.
Stephanie was back today. (That’s her name)
I had snuck off from the vending tables to eat extra food (so that I don’t die) and when I came back Masha and Denny wanted me to tell her the story of Ganesh. (Hoping that she would buy an amulet or a pendant.)

I love that story because I'm sure I didn't make it up and it sounds like a twenty first century Kipling kiddy tale.

Anyway, It all starts out in that far off time when there were gods on the earth and they didn't always have to conform to the strict guidelines of behavior that people demand of them nowadays.
Shiva was then, as he is now, god of all gods, creator of worlds, words, music and the very dance of life itself. Naturally he had his own god-fathers and mothers, but for the sake of my simple story, he was the top god.
In that time, Shiva, master of discipline and order was wed to Shakti who was also called Pavarti, the Goddess of spring, growth and the messy business' of life and birth where most of us find our moments of pleasure and delight.
Shiva too found his delight in her and they spent their wedding night in a grand pavilion set in the midst of a wondrous garden.
Early the next morning Shiva arose to meditate on the top of the highest mountain and practice the discipline of yoga, which purifies the mind and brings order to the senses. He often did this, sometimes meditating for days or even months at a time. So, Pavarti, curled up in her sheets, to wait for him and after a time, enfolded on the womb of sleep, she bore a child.
Ganesh, she named him, and he grew rapidly as young gods do. By noon he had achieved the stature of a young man and learned all the arts of music, dance and war. Pavarti, then wearied by labor and by teaching the young god, answering all his questions, and showing him things that a god should know, retired to her bed, and asked Ganesh to stand guard out side
Her tent, telling him, "Let no one enter until I am rested."
The Shiva came home, refreshed and purified by his meditations, also filled with his passion for Pavarti. At the entrance to the tent, he found the young Ganesh, still guarding. "Let me pass!" said Shiva, but Ganesh blocked his way.
"No one may enter until the Goddess awakes," said Ganesh.
"But I am Shiva Lord Of Lords! No one stands in my way!" Enraged, the god tore Ganesh to pieces, striking his head from his body and casting the parts into the Ganges River. Then he tore aside the veil to Pavarti's tent and woke her, demanding, "Who was that man I slew out side your door?"
"You have killed our son," Pavarti cried!"
"Then we must save him," Shiva said, and the two rushed out to find what they could of Ganesh. A crocodile returned the torso, which he had prepared to eat for lunch; some monkeys found the arms and fished them from the river with long sticks. Birds, fluttering in the highest treetops found his feet and brought them down. But nowhere to be found was Ganesh's head. (Another tale suggests that two hungry rats found the head and mistook it for a coconut) Far and wide Shiva and Pavarti searched but no one had seen the head. (Except the rats and they were not about to tell.) At last the two came upon an elephant that said that he would help. First he drank up the Ganges with his trunk, but they found nothing there. Then he tore up whole forests and even uprooted mountains, but still they found no head. At last the Elephant bowed before the gods and said, "I have done all that I can, and yet I have failed: take my head."
Shiva and Pavarti were so impressed by the elephant’s generosity that they accepted, saying, "Our son could have no finer crown than the head of this wondrous creature." Thus Ganesh was resurrected whole, with the head of an elephant. He had also the nimble hands of monkeys, the grace of birds and the hunger of a crocodile to thank for his renewal. (And of course he knew at once what had become of his real head, but he forgave the rats for they were hungry and could not be blamed for their indiscretion.)
Stephanie didn’t buy the pendant but she thanked me for sharing.

weed killer

for the children of the light

'Twixt the hurting and the hurt, falls the great
Divide. The child in the chalk circle
There is poison in everything. You say
The weed at the heart of the world
Spreads a shadow over all of us.
And you pluck me out, Your eyes both burning.
Am I not as sweet as the fruit you seek?

This chemical atomizes evil.
My Father's brand. For Light application.
I call out the Unpronounceable Name.

We each hasten our own Apocalypse.
Loving every minute of our dying.
There is no reason not to say this;
Both ears listen for the sound of justice.

high jump

I worked at a childrens museum for five years, and tried to be a mirror for the light in all those eyes that came through the place. One day i was working/walking through, and a small blonde barely walking boy was struggling to reach the very bottom of an instrument that measures "How High Can You Jump." The exhibit/thing didnt take into consideration that really small people would want to emulate the rest of us, and his family had moved on to another more engaging computer based exhibit. This child was preverbal, so i went over and set up the thing so that he could reach the inch wide metal flippers and just knock them down. He just smacked them with his hand, and I would set them up again, not a word was said besides "yeah," and "gurgle." a few minutes of this and some family noticed that he was interacting with a stranger. I faded instantly into a name tag and a uniform, but as i turned away I saw my boss watching me.
Mary was a single mother who had lost her second child to miscarriage. We shared an office when i managed the museum's hot dog concession, and I told her my story when her loss was the obvious emptyness that no one ever spoke of. We ate salt together. Shortly after, she engaged, married and concieved a child with the carpenter who built most of the museum's exhibits. She was in her third term when I turned around and saw her there, watching me.
For a tiny moment we locked eyes, and saw each other, as men and women have recognized each other through eternity. Unspeakbly in love with life. We both cracked in a nano-second, before the tears, and walked in opposite directions.
Neither of us ever spoke of that moment; though later, she tried to set me up with a friend, who eventually married the man who fired me from the museum. He was the jealous type. Mary cried while he dismissed me. I have never seen either of them since. That little boy must be twelve by now. Who can say what heights he will reach.

The Farm.

A friend asked me about The Farm.
I lived there in the early eighties. Worked on the construction crew and buried my son there. One of the midifery programs few failures.
I memorized Spirtual Midwifery, but didn't meet Ina May Gaskin until after the funeral. She had Grey Hair that radiated a silver light and she looked kind of like Emylou Harris does now. She gave me something, I think it's called Grace. Steven was more like Willy Nelson with a mean Zen vibe like he'd whack you with a stick is you fell asleep during services. He used to rant about his hatred for Reagan administration and how we were entering the Kali Yuga. I asked him if he didn't think think that the New Age began agin with every breath you take. There was a damaged girl named Cara and a man named Michael Gavin who ran the Construction Co. Those kind of people were the soul of that community. If you read "Voices from the Farm" by Rupert Fike, You'll find Michael and Linda Gavin on page 104. that's what those people were about.

Some one from school (I went back to college in my thirties) said that I had to tell that one story about Owen (son) before I could really write. (true,) but it gets hard seeing others wince at my words. I alienated a few multitudes trying to hash that one out.
Two weeks after the child died I met my Biological mother for the first time. She just missed her grand son.
That man I mentioned Michael Gavin, was really hard on me in the most fatherly way. Read, "Voices from the Farm," It's really an on going work, or should be.
The place was a shambles when I got here. It was like the residue of three million (their estimate) lives passing through. I think parts of Vietnam were like that but all the clothes were left behind, even home canned food, Third world America. I f I'd had a camera...Rusted, earth-bermed school busses, incomplete geodesic domes. A hippy built sawmill (and the fine log cabins made from Farm hewn lumber.) four marriages never worked they said, but I almost felt draw to one, Debora was the midwife that realized our child was dead in Diedre' arms as she sat with us tending. She asked If she could hold the baby for a minute, but the quiver in her voice made me choke on the tofu, spaghetti and tomato sauce I was eating. "Could you get Pamela,” she asked grappling for the phone with the blue child clutched in her shaking arms. Diedre looked as numb as any one who spent seven hours squeezing a human being out of her uterus without any real anesthetic except a joint some one gave us with the spaghetti.
I ran through the dark woods barefoot, choking, guided by the smell of the out house and the din 20 watt bulbs at the next house trying to yell HELP.
The ambulance ride was hours it seemed, and Deborah and Pamela pumped and inflated the tiny chest of our child. I'm sure he was dead from the way they acted. Brave women: pathetic ritual. On the ride home Dee held the baby while I held her, Pamela rode with her husband Leslie in the cab of the ambulance. Deborah was alone with us. Alone she looked on at the tragic couple and I wished that I could break away from Dee and hold her too.
Douglas ran of the few independent business on the farm at that time: Satellite installation. He and Deborah invited us to their small cozy cabin and we watched satellite pictures and movies from around the world. He had a dream that any one anywhere could get information using satellite and maybe some kind of computer. I could Imagine the strength that we would have drawn from the union of our two marriages. This was not forced on us. They helped us become members of the community. Diedre's dreams were for the Wheeler family and Dreams... well, we spent a private wake with Our son, built him a coffin and dressed him in clothes Diedre made for him, covered the body with rosemary and smoky Quartz we dug at lake Champlain and then in a torrent of rain we lowered the box into a deep water filled grave some one else had dug just hours before.
The tiny coffin floated for a moment like a little Viking funeral ship before I started shoveling in the red mud like an angry god. The men on the construction crew never saw me work that hard.
Michael Gavin saw me work, though, he had that voice like gravel and silk that you find in Appalachian Tennessee and north Carolina. He pulled my off the Jobsite one day in spring, and we picked up gloves, goggles, some cable and nail gun sets. We also loaded up with whatever I thought the Guys on the crew needed.
He gave a few suggestions about what I could do with my life, to find meaning. He was a birth father. That is he relinquished his child or his Old lady did, back thirty years ago, and I know he wondered where that kid was.

String Theory

In the begining:
A ball of string and a cat.
Still unwinding time.

SonNet

If poetry could pick apart the atom,
Unravel D.N.A., or stop old age,
It's value could be measured with a gauge
And read so clearly anyone could fathom
The full five feet of every line and verse.
But there's more to poetry than metered lines,
The by-products of our frustrated lives
Or an attempt to set things right with words.
We could think of poems as frozen time,
As threads of thought, holding words together.
What connects them is not the verse or rhyme
But measured breath, a date, a time, a thought.
An emotion that we had before dying,
A ripple on the waters which we caught.