Though the vegetation in this frigidity changes little, static would be a false image. Evolution and growth are imminent in all seasons and wane only through degradation, an absence of observation. You can't force a blossom or a bloom, or deter erosion on these terraced rocks.
How gorgeous the poison ivy appears in contrast to these evergreen 'scapes. Hiding below the fresh lime and lemon hews of the emerging yaupon, the ivy shines an illuminating blessing for my day. Nature breathes dichotomies, allowing saplings to tangle with towering willows, the hints of winter warmth only evident as they stretch through benevolent gaps toward he lapping tongues of sunlight.
Each step is a descent through another realm, a breath of arrival, passing alternating communities of laurel and silktassel. And then the outcrop, returning to sunlight I stand in and the yuccas, their ability to hold steadfastly in lingering fissures since ancient seafloors. How resilient and stoic they seem, surviving these downpours of late after a summer of mundane and dredging heat. Amazing still how a day's rain can initiate second bloom upon the sumacs, such regal red stems abounding in fruit for the last birds heading south. Maybe they knew these rains were sure to come; maybe it was their plan all along.
Heading off trail, I approach the terror emanating from Highway 360, the fumes almost visible, the rubber loud and quick. A small caterpillar waits for a bit more sun, hiding among the seep mulley, wondering if he can metamorphose before the first frost bites. The Mulley is pervasive, overstretching every niche across these slopes. As I bound downward, the rains bless me with the juiciest nostoc I’ve ever encountered. It’s as if it has been awaiting these rains its whole life. To believe it once wasn’t so is equally difficult and simple; how could this land be so if not for millennia of xeric lives. No less troubling is the attempt to recount the snowscapes that our forebears purported from three scores past.
The impressive displays are always the least encountered, and are so justly because. Sliding off a ledge, I stumble to a tributary bed of Bee Creek and crossing spot a magnificent burrow with a dual entrance, as if the beast was is cognizant of escape routes. Needing to relieve myself upon absorbing this creeks majestic flow, I think better of it and find ignorance in the foolish consideration of leaving my scent near their homestead. I press on up the creek.
The turbulence was once great here as the rocks can attest to; a true microcosm of
The smell was secondary as I moved further west up the creek. The buck was young I noticed quickly, recognizing his two initial antlers protruding a the upper end of a foot long ruler, a perfect specimen of a spike. Though pungent, it was refreshing to be engulfed, knowing that this place is breathing, breathing beyond the intrusion from the road and the trash among the leaves.
His skeletal companion’s demise was recent, the marrow and blood still prevalent, thick and syrupy. The consumer was only interested in the torso at this location, possibly transporting the limbs to preferred vistas. I appreciate its dining here, the near water now ample. Upon turning on my rear, I find its trail, the limbs still meaty, fleshed and likely to be visited again. I deliver my thanks and apologies for tainting this hallowed ground and retire, promising to not return for a season.
I leave noting how heavy the water is with iron near the upper reaches of the creek, making note to return with sampling equipment.
The snow is to arrive Friday. I hope the caterpillar has made his amends.
It was always the same for him, the sadder for her. That same sensation rising after the first morn, ther first time and stare. He had a way of hooking them, quick; maybe it was some off kilter genetic thrust, melding with the openness of toes and sheets and honesty. And in the end it was sad for them, but for him, always in the beginning; for him it was the initiation and in their first time apart that made those wet ducts shatter and perception glared. In longing he dreaded what was assumed to come, it only mattered how many spent hours would accumulate to its arrival.
It was unsettling how distinct each one was, though succenctly repetitive. No tww had ever appeared similar, nor had any differed in his gross anticipation of their future. What was so difficult about patience? Why did he continually play his best hands at the opening bell? Not to say it didn't work, it was striking how 'successful' his most recent pursuits (?) had been. Yet it obviously changed nothing of their outcome, or his lofty appraisals at the onset.
I often pondered if the resilience in his attempts would ever warrant what he deserved. Sadly, or not, none of it was in vain, or rather, half-hearted. I think he truly loved some of them, the less they loved him and the more he affected, wounded. His sister and best men would confer it, though it was strangely skewed with his mother. She saw beauty in every of his encounters; us seeing a measuring scale and bovine sale; his sister seeming irreverent, finding each demeaning to their family character. But his mother bad been through one of those seperations, she had to remember how to love when you don't feel loved. And she knew that he was trying. But it was harder for him to love, having felt and feeling he couldn't be loved, he the undeserving.
It was more difficult to believe than it was to be involved, for he, they and us. He truly believed in it its sanctity, aware of so much ugliness around him, he blindly sought for it, for beauty, companionship, putting faith in Platonic admiration and unfettered grace. Not to say he was faultless, but I never met a canine he didn't adore.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
I am waiting
I am waiting for my case to come up
Somehow the absence always makes the heart seem weaker. How a day missed can make one assume that beauty now empty, removed and displaced. It seems it’s been weeks, both since he saw her or introduced himself; years since he first absorbed that warm embrace, as if he’s praying for a hug just for old time’s sake.
He can only wake up alone so many times, so many more late evenings and early morns before something grows, or dies, or ages beyond memory. In all this quest for sempiternal existence, to continue rolling in that eternal wheel and hay bale of yearning. They tell him it’s only the rain and the stain of those olden pains, that he’s just tired and crazed in the mind. He wishes he could be silent, that the times didn’t propel his guessing, his hopeless wanderings.
But I hope he finds it, whatever it is he’s been rambling about, anxiously sweating with. I wish the pain didn’t help so much, the emptiness didn’t restore with such grace. I hate that she knows, that he has to ascend that hill in fluorescent effervescent quilts to cry for shelter, and warmth and the lupine. If resistance didn’t fail, if only guilt was painless and straightforward to ascertain, it would be better or seem as such.
There is only so much he can do before it’s gone, before the drain empties and the flag quits wavering and is silenced. Each string is forever tuned to remain quiet, atleast enough to cool his brow and lessen life’s reverse. Maybe he’ll stand up for his one chance; maybe he’ll stand up for love. We get no second chance in this life, but if it’s love he will know.
Embrace it my
love.
now irrespective of your past outpourings,
your once-resolute intentions.
Immerse yourself in your coming
wanton days,
your true ecclesiastical existence has arrived.
Swiftly so it blossomed
this loft assumption
of commitment.
never “imagining you would be where you are right now:
about to marry the man you can’t wait to spend the rest of your life with…”
It’s hard for me to ‘imagine’,
or any of us who knew you then.
When your joy
Spread like fire
your complacency
Like hemlock.
“stir up some passion
with Uncle Ben’s…”
cause all that’s left is somber Sundays,
and bowls of spicy rice,
to compliment movie night.
maybe the wine
tastes sweeter,
or so we hope.
It’s all we got,
to bestow our blessings
and
hope.
hope you can hold on
and keep from
remembering
what made you,
from
shattering
the horizon he’s painted.
maybe he never started,
but I know he smells
like the locker room,
the chapter room.
But I hope you haven’t lost your scent,
your gaze;
I pray it’s not
dead.
But don’t kill yourself
trying;
know the smiles fade,
running with mascara
through culverts of summer
storms,
and the dew of the rising red.
we can’t govern the tides,
tame the whippoorwill.
everyone’s ship sails
and I know you’ll never
reach new lands
without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a long time.
safe travels,
I’ll be checking the mail.
forever yours,
Rice Ferguson
Done
Finished
Clear the cannons.
Slip back under your sheets
With your putative,
Mascara stained eyes.
You can’t handle
The morning after?
Go back east
To your daddy
And his Saab.
Take your teasing tongue
And ignominious tendencies,
I’ve had my fill.
“When are you gonna
Write me a poem?”
You pester and plea.
“It takes time, you see,”
I encourage.
“You can’t force such things.”
Certainly you’ve made the moment ripe,
Your reason has arrived.
Enjoy it,
You homage,
Your petroglyph.
Read it to your friends,
Remember it for your kids,
But remind ‘em
You ain’t the first.
The torpid stoicism
Settling in you,
It’s normal,
They’re always shocked
Wondering where they went wrong.
You can’t write this kind of shit.
You can’t imagine this sort of drama.
Only in the conception
Of this death,
In finally conceiving
What the mirror returns,
You can hope
To look beyond
Your cherubic perception,
Glance at what your daddy
Was most afraid of.
Your shades won’t cut it
The mascara can’t hide it.
You’ve been revealed
Everyone’s smelled your stench.
Just pray the world’s still got
An ounce of sympathy
Cause my well’s run dry
And you’ve sucked my soul clean
Stop crying.
I can’t help my precocial soul
My itinerant existence.
I’m the vagabond
Your daddy warned you about
I’m the jerk
Your momma lusted for.
Cuss me
Kiss me
Curse me
Fuck me
I’m hanging
By a thread
And have too many patches
Left to stitch.
In any case,
It’s just a poem;
Don’t take it so hard
You knew it was coming
You could feel it
In your bowels.
Take your Pepto
Light a candle
You’ll forget about it soon enough
Well…
Except for this poem.
