Dec. 7, 2009

Boding

Some people in this part of the world predict autumn's
arrival by acorns (when they fall), others by peacocks
(when the male's feathers leave his body), but my own
system relies on the tarantula. And today I saw my first.

Dusk is the time that the light, darkish beast - like a moving
eclipse - carries himself down the road, a caravan of one.
Eight elbowy legs. Huge hairy heart. Though today was hot,
this indicates to me that Fall is putting on her shoes & hat.

Other signs have to do with sound. It seems to travel too,
carrying unintentional news of the neighbours to me, across
the drained creek and tired flat. From quite a far distance
I hear pots, a door closing, laughter like a tall flower, dogs.
If two tarantulas were to mate I would probably hear it.
And it is likely that right now my cousin, over in Rosie's
cottage, can hear me turning pages in the dark.

Two Waters

The Service of Summer seems quick to begin.
Congregations of spearmint & blackberry once
again approach the banks of the creek as if
preparing to bathe the stones. Last lavendar
wildflowers fall apart on the shady hillsides.
One windmill perspires & the grass turns gold
blade by blade. We people make offerings of
thanks to a new well: stronger water, rustless
water. The jars on the railing are an account
of the after & before, as collected by Papa Lou
on the spring morning of the switchover,
our agua inaugural, short and sweet.

Dowsing!

We Are Between Storms

Today the sun has flashed in and out
like a knife being sharpened. The trees
appear anemonic, each branch & twig a line
you want to protect or stay away from.
Around noon I go into the closet and take
down two coat hangers. One holds a pale
blue sleeveless workshirt, old, recognizable
as a flag. I put on the shirt and unbraid
the hooks of the hangers before cutting them
with wire cutters, aiming for the shapes of Ls,
the long part about a foot and a half.
These two tools I bring with me down into
the flat, a wire loosely in each hand.
I begin to pace the grasses & stones
embedded in the hooved mud, trying not
to trounce the infinitesimal shiny chocolate
mushrooms rising from old shit. I walk with
the coat hangers like hip-high antennae.
As I move & stop the wires seem to think for me,
to pause and mull on place. Then sometimes they
pull toward each other, the tips crossing in
an inexorable X, and I take note when the wire
in my left hand swings wide as a dog's tail.
I am looking for the spot for our new well.

Life of Riley

I have been gone all winter.
Come back to the grass greened up
and the creek running like a thief.
I leave the radio off for three days,
just to hear the sound of him escaping
through the night, tripping on rocks
and swiping trees, heading it seems
for Cumpania, Yaqui Camp & onward.

Meanwhile late winter holds evidence
of spring. Up the hill spittle-wet
calves contemplate gravity, calm mama.
One new white goose flew. And Athena
the jobless herd-dog, lonely or hungry
or demented, daily crosses the creek
and tries to transform us into sheep.
It is difficult to appease her.

Late Notes

BUCKEYES HAVE FALLEN, still shiny.
Lost 3 trees this autumn to the wind & dry.
First frost Oct 10th. Some rain while I was away,
week before election. Obama sign still hanging
on barn - no one took it! Tonight the taurus moon
rose in a lapis sky, like a bucket full of gold spit.

Fall Hunger

The deer have thus far eaten
the Valerian (a sedative), the Motherwort
(a heart tonic), and entirely all of the Italian
Basil (a popular Calaveritas intoxicant).
They are now getting to work on the Angelica,
who happens to be the guardian of my
garden, so they'd better watch it.

Naked Ladies & New Birds

Through the walkingness of evening
two new peacocks step inside the cerulean
footcreases of their forebears & rustle up
astonished bugs. Yes it's true:

Cousin Casey has brought back
the totem animal of this town. And already
the male is risking life & wing to admire
his plumage in the car bumpers. Keep
all chrome away from him.

In the last two weeks I've been robbed
& rear-ended, and someone marauded
my sugarbaby watermelons. I feel sorta
like a marauded melon myself -- seedy,
pulpy, cooked by August.

So water & belongings retreat. The creek
pulls in like a pantleg, dangling turtles.
Rocks the color of fog. A sift of wind.
On the edges of dried things naked ladies
pose, whose muscular pink flowers seem
to erupt fully-formed from leafless stalkings.

And there are still blackberries, whose roots
once cured an entire Indian village of dysentary.
Above-ground they form walls, viney railroads
ferrying fruit, & also fortresses for the coveys
of quail who land in them at nightfall,
wheeling, musical.

Hanging laundry at 11, the moon
red as a pink tomato: I put on
a damp dress while I fold.

As the old yarn goes, "It's 107
in the shade and there ain't
no shade--"

Well, today there wasn't
any shade but that's because
there wasn't any sun.

Smoke snuck in
like a gray wildcat, drove
all color outta town.

But hot enough to suck
water from the creek's
mouth, straight.

Dancehall Garden

Will the Last Person in Town

please put out the lights?

There is a strange quality after a party.
No people, but still the sound of speaking.
Flattened parts in the grass as if deer had
slept there. I wander through the garden,
on a lazy scavenger hunt for glasses, plates,
cowbells. I find some in the lilies. But the full
& lonely feeling makes me want to keep these
things where they are, to leave the tablecloths
on the line. A mysterious dog ambles through,
and both of us wonder where all the people
have gone again, the ones who came back
for the longest day of the year - to chew their
wine, sip their blood sausage, & do the work
it takes to make a place. Thank you.

Do You Want the Bones?

Today a cow was killed for me.
A black angus heifer, who grew up
on this land. Neither Verny or I had
the guts to watch the slaughter, which
was done by a husband & wife team.
Already the butcher has called to ask
how I would like her cut up (so many
names for flesh!) & wrapped.

When my grandmother ran the cattle
she knew all of her cows by sight.
She'd hand over the "cow counter"
while she pushed parcels of hay from
the back of her jeep. We would click
& click, watching intently, increasingly
confused, finally deciding there were
twice as many cows as there were.
Yet she never wanted to eat her own
animals, so this will perhaps be the first
time in many decades that a Calaveritas
cow will be eaten in Calaveritas.

Tonight I am having mixed feelings
about the death of the cow, so I walk
up to the barn with a handful of mint.
Everything is drying now, but there
are still lavender brodeia dangling
from the hillsides, & down by the water
lime-colored blackberries are pushing
through the fur of spent stamens.
The place taken in by the warm pockety
night, jangle of crickets and stars.

Down the Crick

This house had not seen a baby
in such a long time. Through the hot
moony nights the sounds of birds &
floorboards amid the succulent squawks,
squeaks, midnight milk-beckonings.
During the day mama carried her through
the stunned garden, in a bonnet & one
of my grandmother's old napkins like a skirt.
The baby sanctified everything: leaf-filled
fishpond, gate made from cupboard doors,
Heavenly Hots cooked in the morning.
While she napped her papa took a rusty pan
from the cellar & as if he'd been here
his whole life left for the creek. Slipping
his hands down into the cold holes
underneath the stones, where other men
had been before but not for a long time.
He came back with ruined boots ("Didja
find gold, honey?") & a pan full of water,
so that he could show us the movement
of the finest grit, ambulations of iron filings
settling according to their weight. There!
he says, & points to a scintilla of a scintilla,
one gilt mote, which we can hardly see
but persuade him to eat for breakfast.

You Look Sharp, But Who's That With You

Lavern Cuneo, my main angel & lefthandman, has just turned
a noble 80. Who would believe it, looking at this crumpled &
hand-colored photo, of him at 8 or so, next to his own uncle,
a workworn Antone Costa, and surrounded by squirrely white
goats. They're standing against the old rock wall behind Rosie's
cottage, which is where he grew up.

Keen fencefixer, cowherd, & gentle wrangler of feral cats, Vern
shows up every morning to make sure I know what I'm doing.
When we're through convening he says, "Well - I don't know
nothing else." And I say "Nope, neither do I." Spry as a calf &
sharp as a new tack. Just don't ask him about the keys locked
in the running truck, he's still sorting that out.