The List

Was that just thunder or someone dragging their chair
over the boards of the narrow porch at Nanbu's courtyard
now there's nothing to say there it goes again
right to the top of the list the one I haven't made yet
the one I will leave on the kitchen counter or right here
where it hasn't happened yet lists don't happen I know
they're written scribed chicken-scratched here's
the ox-heads making their As the double-yokes
their busy Bs the sickle C ready to cut through
Mediterranean waves now nothing just groceries
or things that happened last week so we can say
we're alive the other day I made one up for creatures
starting with wait a minute while I look for it
goats and ending with mongoose don't worry
there were birds in there myna uncelebrated
but everpresent and melodious laughing thrush
hardly present but gloriously celebrated and
three kinds of beetle in case you're wondering
the sort of list where one word say centipede
can conjure up at least five or more stories
like the time in bed when it felt like
all the hair got torn off one arm see that's
wriggling and stinging its way behind
that one word ono too three letters
two of them the same eyeballs popping
when right there by the harbor up it flashed
from the depths a ferocious slippery rainbow

Catching a Ride

Spiders do it spinning a yarn
all the way across the wide Atlantic
how is that possible

Barnacles too on the backs of whales
encrusted they hunker down for long journeys
how did all this begin

Fleas on cats especially those three rascals
up at our place the ones who sit in the rain
I'm not even sure what their question might be

And dreaded coqui frogs in flower pots
or truck beds of visitors from the leeward side
testing their shrill philosophical theories all night

Not forgetting the phosphorous at that chemical factory
where my dad worked after the war
how it came on the bus in trouser cuffs and burst in to flames

Trouser cuffs came into it out on Highway 99
back in '68 hitchhiking 200 miles north to Seattle
I guess I got there and back okay each time

Sometimes it feels like everyone's leaving
catching boats or planes off the island
how come I'm still here and where are they going

Aren't we all anyway thanks to gravity
hustling through the elliptical pathways
slowed down only in our own minds

Sticking out a thumb miles from Dublin
eventually got a ride from an electrician who only wanted to say
we don't do that here we just show our hand on the road

Hailing or hitching these are important things
not Salem to Seattle and all the miles between
but the A to B from me to you from you to me

Snow

Sunrise. Silence. How snow comes falling over the known world
covering all sound. I feel that childhood wonder stirring.
The pure exhilaration of witnessing the miracle of snow
that comes in the night. We wake up in our warm bed
a small world of its own. Pillows and blankets pushed
into a soft fortress against the unknown vagaries of the night.
We survived. We look out then. Step with that tenuous
reaching into the cool air. Barefoot across the boards.
Press against the glass and there it is. The frozen pond.
Familiar boulders statues and walkways all white.
Branches lace-like and delicate where there were once
leaves. We saw them fall. Kicked them into the air.
Smelled the neighbor's smoke. Now this. A quietude.
Evergreen boughs heavy and flocked with the pure essence.

Back inside. They're still asleep. As if the snow
had entered the house and muffled the usual stirrings.
What to do? Back into the cave. The fortress warm still
that held my form all night. There on the wall
the earliest stories. Creatures like deer horse dog fill
the margins but the center lights up with good deeds
rescue attempts and the everlasting battle against evil.
The bow so trusty points its arrow directly at the heart
of the sinister dark lord who seems oblivious...who seems
to be dancing and applauding as if my one mistake
were to believe I could do anything to stop the death
and destruction. I quietly abandon warmth
and race to the window. Was that a dream too?

But there all around—the pure land right where I left it.
Miracle of miracles. Pressing both hands
against the glass now. My face sidelong pressed to ice
it seems to see further to understand more
of what's there beyond the light. And there it is.
Blue sky. Cloudless above all this. And the gods
with their thick glasses surveying the scene.
And that's when I learn how it takes fire to make snow.
How it takes ice to unlock the heart.
I look for strings. Surely those two faces
the darker one frowning surely
they will pluck the lines and bring the day alive
bring buses planes and trains into this scene
the postman the bus driver the cacophony
of everyday life that will most certainly
melt this perfection till it flows back
into the ocean of dreams.

Maple

A man walks by with a Bayer logo bag over his shoulder
I'm in the corner wondering what he's got in there maybe
something for the music in this place with its relentless
heartbeat I myself don't know what I'll do meantime here
in the corner between sips of Americano writing
whew it stopped or rather now it's strung out to dry
in long guitar gently working up to saying it in strings
outside on the way here the wet rounded setts where
First Avenue meets the brow of hill descending
into Pike Place Market a five-ton truck its mouth open
jaw rising up and down in shudders the steel plate
lower lip holding two men holding an empty cable
spool one loses balance steadies himself the other
looks away another on the ground holds an edge
of the big wooden construction what a coffee table
that would make for a giant found furniture is so
passé I suppose at least in the First World today
I live in the Fourth always last writing till it's
time to go today dressed for rain the maple
what kind of red outside the hotel this morning
moreso in the absence of bright sun as Ruskin
liked to point out more pronounced more
beautiful more rich vibrant and alive
on a gray day not cancelled out nor diminished
by bare bulb brilliance even the banana I bought
on the way here Give me 25 cents he said
seemed questionably ripe though I was drawn
to its rather gray pallor and sure enough
upon peeling it perfection put a spring in my
step in November now I don't care about
the synthetic digital percussion coming
through the air where's the speaker
and you know what the barista said
he said he likes the sound of the word
donut the sound the word makes
rather a dull thud though softly I said
not a ring to it though there is a ring
and an emptiness in both word and donut
but getting back to the maple not blood red
nor embarrassed or flushed not a high
pressure red more a force that rose up
and emerged all the leaves of April
May and through till now gone in fire
but here the flames green gives us at the end
life all by itself saying change change
I did it all year long why can't you
and if you don't believe me take this
and that take your photographs
the ephemeral temporal fleeting
here today and gone with a heavy
frost moment take it and fill
your boots with fire light up under
the cloudy sky waiting for passersby
to notice your feathery suspensions
in the next riff and the next
strumming right along now
knowing it won't be long
but while it lasts call it
maple song

Seattle Coffee Works, Pike Place Market Area, November 9, 2011

The Barista

No one knows that behind the counter
she wears those flamenco dancing shoes
somewhere over the rainbow
with a puzzled look or Dame Fonteyn
biting back a smile
a white camelia between her teeth
they don't know but how could they
from their centipede line wiggling over
café interior threshold into the world
of parked cars trees still dripping
from this morning's showers

She moves in that rhythmic certainty
choreographed by orally transmitted
variations on the theme of coffee tea and
what else is there chocolate not too much
for him especially and no whip
but some like latté with a lot of froth
they smile they leave a chink of loose
change in the tall-necked vase
that takes pecuniary thanks for the dance

Now that one's calmed down a bit since
yesterday she's glad to see back only once
for the caffeinated measure the small poison
the small click of the heel the eyebrows
flickering the steam the twist of wrist
the tamping down of finely ground
a look over a shoulder the line
shuffling closer and with a shout
Americano! the head twists away
into the new world outside