one goat's cup worth

last ten birthdays

2011-10-31T14:30:00.000-07:00

18:

Curled up knees below on a chair upstairs of the Campus Library. Reading for class, placated solo, round nine in the evening. Though then Brian finds me, as it was in those months he took it upon himself to care for me. He hunted me down, as this was before I owned a phone. Took me out of the library, from my reading, into his car, where he played tapes of himself singing and playing guitar. We went and got ten pm milkshakes from a Virginia rundown drive through. Not some shining chain, but some loose sign in old neon. Strawberry, I believe. Maybe rather vanilla.

19:

Sitting on the floor of a bookstore with Christine, Lori, and Mary. We’ve found the band Hem for the first time; they’ve just released their album rabbit songs. We sit and I start crying. Can’t help but cry, with redheaded Sally singing, hearing her for the first time. Later, I wear grey corduroys, a powder blue tshirt, and a thick blue wool cardigan that belonged to Lori. It had a hole in the elbow. Lori and I walked over to Mathew and Daniel’s room, where they had baked me a cake absolutely coated in sprinkles. We drove to Washington DC and played hackeysack off the statue of Lincoln until a cop told us to beat it. We drove home, listening to Simon and Garfunkel, and that song we couldn’t stop, Hoarding it for Home.

20:

A party at Marie and Jacob’s. Jackie and I went as the two girls from Ghost World. I wore a pink cardigan and grey tailored slacks, as if going on some professional interview. Someone was a robot, most likely Jackie Small. Mary was a nun, Jym a priest, and Christine, a ballerina. The following day they presented me with the gift (didn’t want to bother you on your birthday, they said). They got me a year’s subscription to National Geographic. One of the best gifts yet.

21:

Worst. Frantic energy with friends asking “what would you like to do?” Well, didn’t know, couldn’t know, left it at me freezing, them saying “call if you can” which I can’t, so I go run. For the first time ever, I run five miles, and I’m sobbing whilst doing so. Later, I speak to my mother on the phone from the balcony. Attempt to hide my crying, but break and both mom and dad know. In the evening, I find myself on the backporch of Parcel House

22:

Best. Opened the bookshop in Jackie’s red cowboy boots and a knee length plaid skirt. Swept the lower floor while listening to Everybody Fields, then John Prine, then Willie Nelson. Accumulated bits of objects from loveys all day, including the Dan Finnegan mug P&E gift me. After work, run around the neighborhoods, watch trick-or-treaters, listen to Andrew Bird. Come home to Hunter house with a living room of friends. We sit and wait for Ian to drive down from DC, and while waiting a knock. Jackie says “come in” but no one comes in, only knocks again. Shit, she realizes, trick-or-treaters, and we have no candy. She scrambles to find something, grabs at a dog toy ball, and thrusts it into the confused fingers of a costumed kid. We close the blinds, turn off the lights, become that house. Ian arrives and in an attempt to grab me, hits his head. Roommates secretly snicker, though this incident will be referenced many times as proof in the pudding. After dinner at Sammy Ts, McAfee knocks on my bedroom door and presents me with a tape of bird songs. I blush and think the coloring’s indecently wrong.

23:

Run about Newmiller Dam in Yorkshire. Run around it twice, then back up the hill. Took a train to York, solo, and swam in the international swimming pool. Then, drink a latte, because I can, then buy a book of poems inspired by Joseph Cornell, because I can. That evening, the international farm staff throw me an “American party” which involves cheap beer and drinking games. The Hungarians bake me a cake, but at this point, I’m not eating any sugar, so watch the international metabolisms feast at. Turns out I’m more than half way decent at Beer Pong. Who knew? Get sufficiently drunk and turn to tequila, terrible.

24.

Work in Brooklyn and run around Prospect Park. Return home to Harlem, where Slelm and Joan present me with a Holga. Take the subway back downtown to meet Eliot on the lower east side. On the subway, another car passes my own, and a zombie stares back at me. I can barely stand it. We eat falafel or pizza or something random, and I head back up to sleep without knowing really what was done or what to do. It’s new york so I’m miserable, no matter.

25.

Harvest Morning, which relieves me of birthday anxiety. Just harvest all morning until they announce the Friday Harvest Farmers’ lunch can be me-centered. I reject and rather run, say I’ll meet up with them once they’ve finished. I finish my run at the café, and little Florian comes out with a cheesecake lit with a sparkler. I try to not fuss, but after blowing out the candles, pass to everyone pieces. They ask, where is yours? I look down. They push, where is yours? Eat some. So I admit and mutter to my running clothed legs, I don’t like cheesecake, because I don’t. Later, I dress like an animal and watch skits put on by the villagers. I like this part very much.

26.

Wake on a farm in Conneticut. Drive to another in upstate New York, in a car with 4 men and no other women. No mention of birthday. Finally, fed up, I lean forward and ask Sebastian if we can stop so I can get coffee. I want coffee. It’s my birthday. He responds “McDonalds?” and I fall quiet. Later in the evening, they eat man sandwiches, with thick and wet meats, which I do not touch. I cry while washing their dishes, alone in the kitchen of a barn we’ve been supplied. Eno, the floating alien German farmboy, pitters up beside me and holds out a handsewn book of handwritten german poems, with English translations as well. Happy Birthday he whispers and enlarges one of his already enormous eyes. He pitters away and I am left with soapy hands staring at such.

27.

Sunday. I’m sick. I run, regardless. I’m sick, but then I ride my bicycle to the yoga studio and do hot yoga. I’m sick, it’s my birthday, so I get a giant fruit smoothie and feel better. I do homework, then eat a hamburger, because it’s my birthday, but it’s a terrible idea, because I’m sick. I go to some concert I can’t remember with a guy I wish I didn’t remember, and I speak to Jackie on the phone, where I am alone at the bar, drinking a gin and tonic, and miss her, miss her, miss her.

28.

Last night, I ate a pear and read Ulysses. I warmed almond milk with honey and read my blue canvas novel. I took a bath and scrubbed. Scrubbed and clipped and then coated it all with cocoa oil so that this morning my body was soft. I woke at 7 and read Ulysses. I finished the episode, laced up running shoes, and ran. I thought about all these birthdays and how they all are full of food not eaten and runs taken and friends present or sideways and how funny it all is. How simple it all is. It’s all what we consume and what we avoid. The interplay of the two. Today, surprise, I run. I drink coffee. I can, and some things I can’t, and so on. And So forth, we go.

maydays

2011-05-08T07:43:00.000-07:00

it's

spring

time

for

finished folks

2011-04-03T07:57:00.000-07:00

hush I in my glottis go!

quiet you now fox too!

if weight be the matter

then decompose

and file away your

so it's straight, serious

with only little a swim

no folks aren't so

big as they may seem

not yet as fragrant as the red soil

or the sunned sides of little yellow

not as noisy as bluebirds

never yet as graceful

so i'd rather

i didn't

so now hush i

let fox you now too

yowza

2011-03-27T16:32:00.000-07:00

-no one really wants to be holderlin out in the garden

with a foot of snow gathered on top of his head-

jim harrison

what the white goat said to me this morning

2011-03-25T16:36:00.000-07:00

i will whine and smile

watch me to see how

please don't take me lightly

i'm composed of solemn solidity

and

smell fantastic in the march sun

come on

belly down now

let's settle this morning

in the hoofing of hay

2011-03-14T21:06:00.000-07:00

woops, looks like it's about time to take the reins again.

otherwise, this great big bird of the world will get out

from under me, and well, wouldn't it be a shame to be

midair with the globe beside me, all feathered and oiled

so as to avoid the saturation of rain and fog, while I?

a patch of mess? soak it all in without even toes?

all that my life's about really

2011-03-09T08:44:00.001-08:00

"fighting on horseback is beautiful"

ivan the terrible

what one does on one's time on

2011-01-04T08:05:00.000-08:00

we fight tigers
beside not against

what we talk about in your made up room

2010-12-08T07:57:00.000-08:00

tight

it's harder to

cross-country-ski

more so than run

single

knee over

single

knee over

knee

draped in

say, I adore,

say, Easy,

fishing hooks

thumb tacks

clothes pins

say isn't this

these easy steps

this fast pace out

onto the yard

of visual pieces

say, you say,

here, eat this,

it's mere skis,

meager shuffle

when I look down

the plane of snow is

all white, all over,

without

the image

of blades (grass)

I try rather triangles

rather cross hill

drag snow

over snow

I make no more nor less nothing

tree you

2010-12-02T12:05:00.000-08:00

1.

he a tree
worn green
to be cut
i'll use him
like logs
fragrant
sound
of wet fir
fire

he asks
if he falls
will i
hear
and i say
yes
yes
with
excitement
i'll hear
the fall
of future
heat for
the house

2.

but
i too
now
a tree
besides
also now
wet behind
ears,
green,
now on
knee
of branches
kneeling
now
lacing, lancing
depending
on
the day
time of
tree
and trestles
leaning

I, too.

joan dear

2010-11-28T16:11:00.000-08:00

If I were Joan Didion,

I would construct

rectangular thoughts

of substance and story.

I would smooth over my eyes

large black sunglasses

type obstinately at prose

tidily fit five feet tall

between hard covers.

Bravely, I would create

the heat and draft of sorrow

and macrobiotic birthings

in nouns, verbs, commas,

periods.

I would disappear beneath

the skin of strangers

tape lives like collagework

in straight and long lines.

Sure I'd swing my arm up,

but I would never slouch.

If I were Joan Didion

I'd be a paragraph

blink blankly at the thrown

together notion of the stanza

skirt the issue altogether

return to my following chapter.

he wondered all winter, and so did i

2010-11-15T15:57:00.000-08:00

He wondered

all winter

what her hair

must look like

underneath

the fake fur cap

she wore tight

over her ears

from September on,

when he first arrived,

with the red

and yellow branches.

Taking

handfuls of hay

for the animals,

was it also so dry,

also this thick,

yellow, fermented,

drowsy.

could he, too,

chew as a cow,

on its edges?

Or pulling up

palmfuls

of the dead weeds

beside the deer fence

post, was it wet

and circular,

tight, rooted

into her head

like long, brown veins?

Would it circle

his thumbs,

up his forearms?

Could he band

his elbows with it?

The March day

gave

an infant sun.

He sported

thin shoes,

feeling this warmth,

he sought her.

She filled jars

with water,

outside the house,

her ankles bare

so her shoulders

her neck, there,

solid, skinny.

He hid

behind her

hat, just as

stubbornly pushed

on to her temples

as during

the early snows.

He saw her

otherwise naked,

no matter:

not the water

at her ankles

not the eyes

of animals

and other hands,

only the motion

of his wrist

towards her

head, as he tore

the hat

from it.

at the laundromat on a Saturday Night

2010-11-06T19:31:00.000-07:00

I love the Baby Giant Panda

I'd welcome one to my veranda.

I never worry, wondering maybe

Whether it isn't Giant Baby;

I leave such matters to the scientists-

The Giant Baby- and Baby Giantists.

I simply want a veranda, and a

Giant Baby Giant Panda.

-ogden nash-

Lassa, the prodigal ram

2010-10-16T07:49:00.000-07:00

I've been eaten by sows, one boar.

I've scratched their thighs too often.

I've knocked the trees and loosened the bark.

I've turned on you, haven't I.

I've laid down in circles of straw.

I've constructed the circles myself.

I've arced them with my hooves.

I've tasted bread, which differs from grass.

I've sweated smells more so than most.

I've allowed you to touch my painful forehead.

I've turned on you for doing so, haven't I.

You've sold the sows, one boar.

You shook when they found me.

You've pruned those trees with saws.

You've turned from me, haven't you.

You've thought to lay in circles of straw.

Like a mouse, like me, nest.

You've felt your fingernails with the pad of your thumb.

You've tasted grass, but prefer bread.

You've gotten my scent for days in your nose, your hands.

You've satisfied the painful desire to touch between my eyes.

You've turned away from me, haven't you.

Let's return.

Let's try this again:

I will fully my name, and ram.

You fully yours, keep being.

events

2010-10-05T10:08:00.001-07:00

This twig and I meet across

the top of my head

It looks down and taps

the regality of sap

onto the soft spot of my crown

I'm so busy thinking

it's my need to imbue

these creatures with spirit

that I miss their chattered

whistled blessing

The water washes my hands.

The squash feeds me.

I meet the twig,

but it prepared the ceremony.

Virginia comes over the country

2010-09-26T07:32:00.000-07:00

First,

I'm half way up Green Mountain when I see her leaning off her hip,

drinking from an old mug some water she collected of the rock.

Virginia, what a surprise, what is she doing here?

Virginia, I say, What a surprise. What are you doing here?

She doesn't answer because she's got her head facing West and

I'm speaking up from the East.

But I reckon it has something to do with the different between

hills and mighty elevation .

Then,

I'm driving like I will on Friday Mornings to work on the farm.

The land is regal with the hue of morning and

I'm just sucking and sucking and sucking it in through my eyes

as much as I can, when she's there, then, too,

Virginia's right hand disappeared into the matted fur of a buffalo's back.

Virginia! I shout, my car idling on the dirt path with the urban title of 59th street.

Virginia, I shout, what are you doing over there?

She answers this time, but with a clippness as to indicate I've got one

question, and I've asked it.

"Getting bits of whatnot off the Buffalo! Cleaning him up, really!"

I call out "Oh"

but realize she won't answer any others,

she's back to the animals, grass up to her hips.

I want to ask her how Jackie is,

how's the smell on the little road near Charlottesville.

What boxes have been brought in to the bookshop,

how many shark teeth have washed up on the Potomac.

But I'll just have to trust my intuitive answers:

twofeetwell, thus better, crisp, civilwar and popup books,

and too many to count, too many to ever fully collect.

It's nice to know, now, that the states visit one another sometimes on the weekend.

Next time Colorado goes calling, I'll ask if I, too, can go.

animal body

2010-09-13T15:09:00.000-07:00

The hairs on my body form circles.

Light curls make shapes, ovals, opals.

I find hours to touch them gingerly,

above from the reflection of a pot,

or while standing on an elevator,

I look up, then touch the side of my

ear, where hair forms, returns, pets

and pats itself, like that on my upper

arm, see here now, my cheek, the down.

I’m comforted by my animal being,

who asks for no more ambition than

the breath and a good stretch occasionally.

I’m thrilled with the way it moves, not

through time, not out and long and firm,

but rather into itself, like sleep,

like how I find my form, at dawn.

evening, 1940

2010-09-04T20:59:00.000-07:00

words from mister francis ponge:

What is it made of, this pleasure?- Principally of this: the pine woods is a piece of nature, made of trees all of a clearly defined species; a well delimited piece, generally quite deserted, where one finds shelter from the sun, from wind, from visibility; but no absolute shelter, not one completely isolated. No! It is a relative shelter. Not a sneaky shelter, nor a measly one, but a noble shelter.

It's a place too...where development is gradual, natural, without coppicing, without man-high branches, where sprawling out simply occurs, without slackness, but quite comfortably.

Each pine wood is like a natural sanatorium, as well as a music hall...a chamber, a vast cathedral of meditation (a cathedral without pulpit, fortunately) open to all the winds, but through so many doors that it's as if they were closed. For they hesitate there.

...

No laughter, but what salubrious comfort, what a temperateness of elements, what a soberly scented hall of music, soberly adorned, well made for serious walks and meditation.

-francis ponge-

2010-08-31T20:34:00.000-07:00

He wiped chalk from his palms and twiddled his fingers and told me to be concerned

with my spleen and the footwear. He arranged his two arms like a cross and said

that I was all funny and off, and did I know what he was saying, yeah? and I looked at

the hills and said I could see them, and he said I couldn't, and I said it's Eve's fault and

he told me I'm her. His eyes seemed translucent and if he were blind I wouldn't be shocked.

Again, with space, he shook his arms in front of me and said to stop using the future,

and stop, knock it off with seeing the idea of mountains, and for seeing the idea as

grand, and what's more, quit it with seeing the idea of grass, and seeing the grass as grand.

two creatures of substance more than us

2010-08-29T16:22:00.000-07:00

We often won't stop for pennies, storm clouds, or bags needled on trees,

needing to be collected and recycled.

We won't pull over to pee, sneeze,

or have a good think about what was the name of that singer anyway.

But yesterday, all cars of varying colors stopped

mid mountains, not to observe the historic growth and destruction of rock,

or the pale, small yellow flowers of elevation,

but for the elk.

And not only the elk!

with his heavy antlers which i only know

in the form of low lying branches on old oaks,

with his thick and must be fragrant mane of matted fur,

but also the coyote!

Who jaunted up and past him!

to all of our horror and expectations of disaster!

Cameras were confused, where to shoot!

and the animals apathetically ignored one another

as we jumbled, unevolved in our emotions,

through every possible reaction.

We all stopped,

but the elk never started,

and the coyote continued.

the dog farmer

2010-08-23T18:46:00.000-07:00

The leather farmer buried the dog several hours

before I saw it underneath the belly of a car,

running its paws sideways into the air,

calling out like a coyote or a kettle.

The mountains were continuous but for one line

of sweat, beads of automobiles on route 36 streaming,

and I ran towards the thin pearls from the east,

interrupting grasshoppers, also gleaming, shining wet.

It was morning and he was mourning, out there with a golden shovel,

his truck parked asleep on the side of the road,

his forearms capable of transcending time and place,

burying the dog slowly that wasn't yet dead, in his or someone's corn field.

He buried the dog that hadn't yet even gone out for his walk.

He buried the dog that napped,

in morning sun, sleeping, east,

somewhere, on the other side of the city.

2010-08-19T07:28:00.000-07:00

floaty me

2010-08-08T16:13:00.000-07:00

found this, labelled 4 1/2 on the back by mom

it seems as if i knew

i'd be floating a bit to one side,

looking a little tired, but more so intent

ending in words that only make sense in context

2010-07-25T15:26:00.000-07:00

folks like beans here are, for me, favorites.

those that are honest and sneaky, honestly sneaky,

stealing glances yet giving away emotional alms almost daily.

true boned and solid folks, with big strong heads

and crafting hands,

diving through the trees of various cities to find words

for what should be, because that's the concern.

what should be, to benefit the all.

matt wrote me today to say that all men are brothers,

and that's true, though i'd like to take it a step further

and say the photograph above is a family portrait, with

beans, the bushes, boots, red, two.

here at home

2010-07-18T16:14:00.001-07:00

I'm waiting for the feeling of being home,

here on the porch,

with my wagon of worthwhile possessions

animals offer their advice

2010-07-11T07:16:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, after the rain, came the animals.

Fish and cardinals, wet raccoons

and ginger cats, toads, canaries, opossums,

brown bears, and black ones, newts,

skinks, turtles, ewes and lambs,

horses, voles, fox, bucks, balboas,

seals, skunks, miniature, standard sized poodles.

Everyone was wet, skirting off drops,

with expressions of absolutely apathy.

I, a handful of calendula, asked for advice.

'animals,' i asked, 'how should this be?'

i didn't even know myself if i was referring to

my life, my actions, this life, other's emotions,

the way to live daily, the way to pray, the

overarching atmosphere, or to what degree

i should recycle, floss, dust, or prostrate in gratitude.

The question put forward, the pavement steaming

from a few hours of rain after three weeks of heat,

I stood expectant of an answer and received a groundhog

who took the bouquet from my fist, rearranged the yellow,

the salmon, the orange, the brown, and replied

'it should be like this' and looking up from the circle of petals

found the panther and the parrot in agreement.

mimosa

2010-06-30T10:48:00.000-07:00

she tells me my unsatisfied yearning might not belong rightfully to me.

maybe it's the neighbor, across the creek, shoving twigs and newspaper,

attempting to start the fire, flinging on more gasoline from a small red tank,

cursing and hoping that the flames sustain themselves this time.

I'm breathing in last sunday's silk mimosa tree.

I'm not crossing my fingers, but I am rubbing my own neck,

leaving traces of pink, yellow, green.

I choose this world, thank you

2010-06-20T11:19:00.000-07:00

My hands full, I left the fields

with the stem of a four-leaf clover

between my top and bottom teeth.

This is how to carry luck.

Don't fill buckets full,

boxes, pockets, your palms.

Rather, fill your bags with

zucchinis, raspberries, beetles

and birds. Collect leaves and

histories in your turned over hat.

Suck on the delicate branches of fate.

Chew, methodically, expectation, like

bubble gum, with bubble gum.

Open your arms, here, some matter.

Put ideals and ideas in the spaces between

the woven wood of your basket full of pears

nonsense, no

2010-06-05T04:07:00.000-07:00

This time, I stay close to what I find standing.

I identify the fireflies, but admire more the cereal.

After the soil, the roots,

intricate strings

pulling through and collecting.

Once upon a year ago or so, I thought of writing candidly about my experiences,

so that those I barely speak to could have a sense of what I'm doing.

The terribly habit of ambiguity is at home in my poetry, and sometimes

I don't even know where these bags of images come from, that show

up on my mind's front porch.

I wrestle my weak descriptions so often, down in the grass,

all of us wet with rain or dew.

The verbs on top, than I am, till an adjective kicks me in the back

of my knee, and the adverbs all snicker.

Nouns crowd me all day long:

cows, cups, fissures and flowers.

So, apologies for the river water I've offered

in lieu of lemonade.

I'll go back to school soon and try to do better.

a question for ya'll

2010-06-02T04:32:00.000-07:00

how will i transport my goat cross country?

my uncle peanut's picture

2010-05-27T18:40:00.000-07:00

ben and his long face

2010-05-27T18:37:00.000-07:00

Ben has been weeding for days now,

one long strip of land that may,

or may not, be used for our lettuce.

He's been out there, crouched in steel

tip boots, armed with a spade,

since last monday, when he heard

how his grandfather had died.

Now he speaks lowly to the wheelbarrow,

to the stubborn dandelion, the nettle.

No matter of rain,

let rivers form beneath him.

He quits only when you

kneel and take his clumsy hands,

rub the soil into your palms as well,

eat at his alter and lead him back,

by evening, to the supper table.

mostly for mom

2010-05-21T03:47:00.000-07:00

once on an evening, she blew tree bark up my nose

and my head fell out my ears, while my mind sunk into my ribs.

i jumped into the ocean and swallowed breathes of salt water,

then lost my green shorts in the surf.

as i grow older, i find the first sighting of fireflies fuller,

thicker, more significant, more dense.

they flicker over the fields and i take them in,

replace my thoughts with insects,

replace my objects with actions,

my life with hers, yours, his.

i go home and sleep, listening to the scuffles,

just sounding like raccoons,

really being feelings.

i'd like to

2010-05-16T19:03:00.000-07:00

slouch as the cats do, lean one eye into the other.

find segments of wool and wall to rely on,

pull muscle from muscle out into whiskered fur,

keep your sense of scent wet,

sleep, then sleep more.

2010-05-12T20:08:00.000-07:00

`Well!' thought Alice to herself, `after such a fall as this, I shall think nothing of tumbling down stairs! How brave they'll all think me at home! Why, I wouldn't say anything about it, even if I fell off the top of the house!' (Which was very likely true.)

i'm wondering whether i should

grow pies or turn into a magpie

or reincarnate

now

and see if there is a difference later.

should i sleep in shorts, or slips, or socks?

shouldn't i be ready, now, for bed?

what are we doing then

2010-05-02T19:04:00.000-07:00

I prefer the time of insects to the time of stars.
I prefer to knock on wood.
I prefer not to ask how much longer and when.
I prefer keeping in mind even the possibility
that existence has its own reason for being.

-wislawa szymborska-

it's a

2010-04-24T15:20:00.000-07:00

it's a goal to be as a goat:

possess hooves,

ears, even without horns,

sound somewhere between

a bray and a bah

star yellow

2010-04-17T10:40:00.001-07:00

So, I can not name them.

They need, I know, some water.

I dig my knees deep,

return them prematurely back to dust,

to pray and pick these flowers.

consider yourself surrounded

2010-04-08T18:09:00.000-07:00

i'll opt to consider myself surrounded,

rather than lonely and amid quiet,

weil there's a whole circus of friends

pulling out a whole nonsense on stops

in the green house, which is toppling over

in not only green but purple and blue and

stars, ribbons, sticks, and soil.

every morning, this lupine surprises me with another tassle.

every morning, it greets me with a trick or two.

something's now on fire, unfolded,

waving greetings, waving dew.

mad tom

2010-04-07T17:02:00.001-07:00

April

Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.

edna st. vincent millay

thanks

2010-03-28T10:49:00.000-07:00

All things are full of gods, eh thales?

Does this include us and our filthy thumbs?

It is not a problem of perception for me now,

but rather how to react to continual deities.

I'm beginning to understand why some live perpetually

on their knees.

We'll never be able to say thanks enough.

I pass on my gratitude to the birds,

so that they may pass theirs on to the berries,

so that they can nod cheers to the sugar,

which, when warm, will make them into jam,

which I'll take and coat on the wafer.

Drink the cordial too.

Then kneel and harvest more.

stronger language

2010-03-22T04:56:00.001-07:00

The saliva left from the mouths of grazing cows

aid in the regrowth of grass,

and so honor your spit as a bandage,

cooing and nursing your tongue and palate,

so that the words you may speak today replace

the weaker ones of yesterday, your language

rolled in the salve, in the tincture.

Know it will be said even better tomorrow!

rain day muddled

2010-03-13T11:31:00.000-08:00

I have a mind to confuse things,

unite them, bring them to birth,

mix them up, undress them,

until the light of the world

has the oneness of the ocean,

a generous, vast wholeness,

a crepitant fragrance.

-pablo neruda

arugula

2010-02-28T05:17:00.000-08:00

Let's bless the green bits, and the sink that cleans them.

Eating these, our atoms wear sweaters of chlorophyll

and cozy up to one another, making messages pass faster,

as green woolen atom elbow nudges green woolen atom side.

Let's go ahead now and acknowledge that emphasized in winter

is the oneness of objects, so that our green mixes are comprised

not only of arugula and mustard greens, but are made also of

towel, cat, birch, telephone, right arms, left feet, chagrin and glee.

Let's not forget what these greens mean!

Let's improve our memory by cramming

our heads with the stuff, fit like cotton balls,

dyed, extended, covered in leaves and gleaming,

around our silly sleepy hemispheres.

Take in everything, weeds and nets included,

and digest yourself into them.

gabriel oaks, again.

2010-02-20T08:52:00.000-08:00

alice, he says, I'll hold this for you.

Look, I rest beauty on my shoulders,

so that you do not feel the burden of the flower.

You can fight battles of impulse,

scowl at your own knees,

and only later, return to me.

-clogged yet unalloyed man of the goodwill treasure shelf-

part one

2010-02-20T08:41:00.000-08:00

hold out your fists as if holding a steering wheel,

that's habit.

now turn over your hands, open your palms,

as if receiving a pile of linens for the bed you'll sleep in,

that's nirvana.

that's what the straight spined woman said,

and if I trust her calm smile, I'll believe it.

If breath constructs balanced awareness,

why is beauty all muddled and skipping, both

during the inhale and the out?

I singe the leaves when I enlighten the plant.

I wrestle with the same problem of the silly apple,

over and over and over again, until I find myself

eating the concept.

the woodlanders

2010-02-03T17:43:00.000-08:00

with gratitude, we get through

in response to jackie's double rainbow

2010-01-13T10:55:00.000-08:00

there are days, midwinter, when the sun is strong enough to warm the outer skin of things, including us, even beneath our jackets and felted woolen sweaters, the sun hits our skin and our freckles shiver in excitement. the egyptian, the german, and i lay down mid-field, amongst

the frozen carrots. our digging forks, defeated, lay beside us, all of us a fallen army with

red flags waving to the cold, 'that's it,' we say, 'that's it.' we are in the shape of cookies,

really, funny lumps of layers, arms oozed out over someone else's ankles. and then, there comes, the sun. and we all are momentarily warm.

i don't remember what we speak of, language,

most likely, as the egyptian, the german and i usually find ourselves discussing words,

their variety, their inclinations towards emotions, their origin and their children. then, plotzlich, suddenly, the german points up and on the cirrus cloud above appears a rainbow, fantastic, concentrated, lighting up the whole mare's mane, so that it morphs into a feather of some tropical bird we've never bothered to learn the name of. i think i began the laugh. the handsomeness of the colors, the shape of the feather, the placement of it right above us, right at that time, right between heaven and the carrots, us and this art.

once faded and finished, we three stood back up and rearranged our bodies into neatness.

i said a prayer in english. the german spoke in hebrew. the egyptian, arabic.

it didn't matter, the language: the sentiment, the event, the same.

language

2010-01-02T06:13:00.000-08:00

let's raise our glasses,

so that we can not see.

let's toast,

with yoghurt and marmalade.

let's wave,

then straighten out.

let us love language in its inability

to agree, in its downright shakiness.

let's love the tongue that says it wrong

and all the heads that nod and hum

without getting the drift,

meaning the wood,

found oceanside,

meaning

softened, salted, sandy.

recent dreaming

2009-12-20T09:21:00.000-08:00

the movement of groups

first, the nuns, running.

they were not fleeing,

though they flew by

night, a pack along the

path below the hills.

i mistook them for monks.

jacob corrected me in

my sleep and said, nuns,

running, not fleeing, but

flying, their cassocks

behind them as ribbons,

as branches, as wings.

and then the two stags, in

union with the four does,

running and fleeing,

through the beets, the echo of corn,

over the remnant of onion grass

and clover, past purslane

and potato skins, muddled in earth.

each leg plucking a string of the cleft,

the sound quick and strenuous,

then vibrating, fleeing,

as ribbons, as branches, as wings.

last night it was children,

skating on the ocean where

it had frozen, somewhere between

the first and second bar.

when the whistle blew, they

turned their bodies to seals

and swam to shore, catching

the still nodding waves of

movement, of salt water.

i was present, up to my neck

in the bob, but unconcerned

for myself. rather, as an onlooker,

i fretted over the kids as they

flew, ran, swam, and fled,

in unison, as birds, branches,

nuns, deer, ribbons tied

about antlers, as wings,

waving.

november horses

2009-11-13T11:53:00.000-08:00

i crossed the path of a white cat,

this friday november 13th.

Am I more or less lucky now?

It's the season again when carrots come out

hugging one another tightly,

around the neck, belly, and ankles.

The crops know what's next and

they seek comfort in each other.

Similarly, leaves hurry to take

part of the collective sleep on the floor.

I find myself in the familiar pattern of sucking up

and deriving my own pleasure.

Mack Mead, a farmer, spoke last Saturday of returning home

this time of year, after working outside all day.

You swallow browns and crisps and purples,

decays, endings, mutings and fadings.

Then it's night and it's five and you've finished

because you can no longer.

You walk home. You see light.

and the world is awake and almost too much inside.

The walls are textured, colored, alive.

The smells are wet, comforting, like horses.

Pleasure is standing on the threshold between the two

and recognizing the stern outer angles

and the soft inner auras.

I put one boot inside while I keep my other out.

2009-10-29T18:03:00.000-07:00

for goat's goodness

2009-09-25T17:38:00.000-07:00

i dig my hand into you, goat,

for softness' sake and my own.

i look for the determination to smell

as sweet as you, goat,

to find an oil that coats too my fiber.

if only i were to possess horns,

not for gauging but for itching

the scratch on my very own back,

just as you do.

one week's memory

2009-09-20T09:14:00.000-07:00

i read yesterday morning

(while drinking coffee with cream on the backporch)

of how human's capacity for memory has changed.

and i say changed, not evolved.

in this book, they talk of images and memory.

no mention of solidity, but viscosity.

this past week, since returning home from the west coast,

has been all images and experience.

i stepped out of the shower and was wiping the mirror

clean of condensation to look at how blood shot my eyes were.

jacob stood on the other side of the door, somewhere

about where the large mirror leans.

he had found lassa, the ram, or the remains thereof,

buried his skull in the compost, marked it with grass.

a hot air balloon landed by our onions yesterday,

the sound of gas pulsing.

a van came and pulled up along the drying stalks of corn,

the image of a balloon painted on its side,

bumping along the grass to pick up the riders.

we watched the events from the drive, each with a watermelon

between our sides and elbows.

the sky filled with grey on wednesday and thursday.

the light would break and hit half the fields.

that finally, after august, are beginning to look neat and tidy,

like paper stacked and organized on shelves.

neat plants growing in the deep colors of autumn:

all purples, hunters, almost blue.

certain trees have decided to turn,

all purples, hunters, almost blue.

i picked apples alone on thursday;

i ate bites from five and my belly burned.

he said yesterday that we shouldn't be scared to try the new.

that we should take our collected images and apply them to the

present, shift and change them, pour them, viscous,

like syrup, over the situation, and delight in the sweetness

of what was, memory, and what is, the image.

soil not sand

2009-09-08T10:52:00.000-07:00

Have made it now to the west coast.
Why, look at all these rocks.
If I were a geologist, I'd drool
(if my mouth were not dry).
This landscape homes the language of
'from dust to dust'
Were we once?
I always imagined us as soil, not sand.

2009-08-13T04:51:00.000-07:00

an answer to the events of a rainy thursday:

a phone call, the gardener, and the first ever

gift of 'stay home this morning; i'll go in myself

and turn over the onions'

so now, books letters blankets

wet morning

2009-08-13T04:24:00.000-07:00

it's difficult to imagine what will happen today,

this rain and yesterday evening's, all these weeds

to pull but not from mud,

not from the wet leftovers of some previous month

it's easy, once away, to forget the grip of fields, how

they own us here, how horse nettle and pigweed snicker

and even purslane blows hot air around our ankles,

setting traps of inconceivable work days. three days of

virginia and my palm was reading tidy, what amendments?

what deficiencies? what sorting and planting and cultivating?

i was enthralled in social relationships and upper lips,

shoelaces and breakfast bills.

now, back, we lean over our crops.

the land group asked

the subtle bowhunter to triple his shots, peppers are

blushing, onions clipped, heavy, curing, and now, it's

raining, and where my feet touch, the soil will part into

two equal clumps of obligations and necessities, only

fulfilled partially, the rest will wait till drier conditions.

august first, who remember rabbit rabbit

2009-08-01T12:00:00.000-07:00

august

it comes

and sits, stale and green,

like gingerale from june left

on the back railing of the boat's deck.

friday's harvest brought the finale of early summer cabbage and chard, well washed beets

and carrots, head lettuce separated and washed, lemon basil and thai magic, parsley (which

i can't help but find boring) and others, washed, sorted, in green and gray crates. lael and

sebastian are away in colorado for a wedding and the weight of the acres falls on the shoulders

of jacob and myself. we both worry we will be transformed into killing machines, mechanized

and tubed, due to our inexperience and independence. i fret over the green house, open and

close it, open and close, peek in, open, glance, close. water, once? wait, two passes?

jacob uses the tractors and rubs his head nervously with suspicion. wait, too close? too wet?

is it everything? nothing? of course, it's both, and if the two of us aren't careful, we'll pray to

the physical world alone and forget to bow to shadows as well, and the space between the

objects and the shadows. those realms we make fists for, we water for, we weed.

the routine of the summer and the necessity for carefulness leads to urges of recklessness.

i want to take naps and work on the odd tan lines around my body. i want to take the hyacinth

car and drive to find jackie. i want to make mixed drinks for twenty people and read out loud

prose poetry, set off fireworks and then fall asleep underneath them, waking to confuse

fireflies with sparklers: stale, green, like gingerale, like august, in the palms of my two hands.

round about now

2009-07-20T07:36:00.000-07:00

everything changed here in the garden a few weeks ago when the third apprentice, jessica,

threw down her water bottle and tendered her resignation in the heat of a friday afternoon.

we went on weeding the carrot patch, but her two hands were missing and we felt it as

we combed through the rows like slow, wet, manatees.

simultaneously, two other gardeners left, as they had planned to, and over the course of

a few hours, we lost three helpers, six hands, sixty fingers to pull up the many weeds and

harvest the many summer squash and basil buds we have about our garden. we did not

panic, but the garden sucked in its stomach collectively and we've grown tighter and

closer since then.

the garden is comprised of many inhales and exhales. the main breath is sebastian,

our head gardener-farmer and lael, his wife, who conducts and plays the garden-oboe.

jacob and i now fill in the air about them as apprentices. the four of

us have slightly different pulses and therefore beat separately, often independently.

in any given moment i may be leading in the goats, lael, watering the seedlings, sebastian, setting out irrigation, and jacob, spreading compost over recently tilled fields. in another flash,

lael will be digging beds for thyme, jacob spraying a preparation over the fields, i will

be weeding for tomorrow's harvest, and sebastian will be cultivating the sweet potatoes.

sometimes, we will all breathe together, while planting strawberries or sorting carrots.

sometimes, i'll look up and be alone in the peppers. sometimes, i'll be surrounded by 20

people, all pulling up pigweed from the raspberries, like birds about low tide shores,

bustling, shifting.

i work in a biodynamic garden. we view our land as an organism. it breathes as we breathe.

it's comprised of organs with their own sensitivity. it's not silly. it's sacred and science.

therefore, the metaphor of blood and oxygen works. how else would anything grow?

the summer is reaching its high point. sebastian said so over beers at the sly fox post work

last wednesday. i drank and wiped my wet mouth with the back of my hand. the sun was at an angle that i had to shade my eyes to see him, and even then, the small hairs about his jaw line shone individually golden and straight.

at the height of the season, we must sustain ourselves. how do we do so?

we inhale, then exhale.

july has another two weeks, then comes the creature august, in an altogether different

colored coat. almost everything is planted in the garden and there is new help.

carrie from washington dc has come for a week. anna, for longer. a new apprentice

arrives from germany at the end of august.

the toads work too, eating up insects at night.

at dusk, we free ourselves from the breath of the fields and come inside, bearing marigolds

and cherry tomatoes.

sometimes, i bring home these little weeds with these little flowers and photograph them

on my desktop fabric of blue, pink and white.

i think of the letter A and drink milk before i sleep at night.

2009-07-08T04:34:00.000-07:00

ready?

raspberries, carrots, beets, sunflowers, marigolds, chard, kale, spinach, head lettuce,

salad mix, asian greens, watermelons, turnips, cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, beans,

blackberries, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, cucumbers, cantaloupes, summer squash,

zucchinis, peppers, eggplants, onions, scallions, corn, winter squash, rutabagas, apples,

asian pears, wildflowers, bees, donkeys, sheep, goats, pigs, and us.

here we go

2009-05-16T08:30:00.000-07:00

let's try not to forget, folks, that life's building

and continuing, and we can pick to our heart's delight,

because more will grow in the place of those.

she said last night that at one point she looked down

and realized she was eating herself thin.

they all laughed when i suggested peace and health

could be the baseline, the norm, and we don't need

to strive but rather ease back into it.

when they finished laughing, she grew serious

and said 'that was called paradise and we mussed it up.'

but, from this perspective, the one bent down to

view budding cucumbers head on, pushing up

through vermiculite and wet potting soil,

we're fortunate enough to have the continuation

of peace to be, of creation, quiet.

life being moist, moving.

ewes alike

2009-04-21T04:19:00.000-07:00

chris is a fourth generation sheep shearer,

who speaks in a shout regardless of environment,

as if always a bleet and the buzz of clippers were in his ear,

as if always he had to talk over a lamb, through the wool.

there was rain hitting hard against the barn's ceiling,

as we clammered over the ewes and grabbed one at a time,

a handful of sweater,

the sweet odor of lanolin and fear.

now lambs and ewes are alike,

same sized:

small and round bellied,

bleating into the water,

into the spring.

one, thirty six, fifty

2009-04-07T04:16:00.000-07:00

count trees

up to fifty,

then fifty more.

shake the red of cardinals

out from behind your eyebrows;

it's not needed there.

pigeon shoot take one

2009-03-31T04:39:00.000-07:00

as soon as jacob got the 'go ahead,' he went:

steadying his aim on the barn's beam, raising

the gun, bringing down one of the many pigeons

that roost up in the eves,

over our tractors,

over our tools.

if i were alone with a pigeon that just

fell, single gems of blood which clumped

and beaded in the dust of the ground,

i would have spread out its wings

in desperation and naivety, smoothed

and soothed its neck feathers, and placed

the bird somewhere in tall grass, to be

found later by sankanac's cats, by tamed tigers.

rather, i wiped my nose and witnessed others

spring into action, elbows, forming Vs with

nails on chunks of raised wood, finding axe,

finding the head between two fingers,

finding a bag and the freezer, finding everything

ruffled, rumpled, nothing smooth, only finished.

groundhog fever

2009-03-28T04:57:00.000-07:00

twenty bucks for a groundhog trapped,

thirty, if skinned.

i ride my bicycle past the green house over gravel,

sand, and thursday's percolated rain,

to check my trap of chickweed and chard:

green, yellow, pink stalks of deceit.

there's no sign of interest, only fresh claw

marks from the mound of earth by

the thin birch tree, by the creek, below the garden.

twenty bucks would buy me new toothpaste,

vanilla ice cream, two kiwis.

thirty, goodness knows.

every day i've waved and greeted the groundhogs.

these hands that hello now are

setting traps,

rearranging temptation.

so a cowboy walks into a bar and says...

2009-03-21T18:27:00.000-07:00

sometimes working in the garden feels like going to a costume party

l.s. mother, upon hearing of his day trip to philadelphia,

instructed l.s. to wear 'sunglasses and a large hat.'

no one told me to wear mine, except the voices of reason and softness' sake.

2009-03-21T18:24:00.000-07:00

'light is more important than the lantern'

nizar qabbani

but continue to hold it carefully!

for a careless swing will knock both

light and lantern out of your hands

and then you'll be singing of darkness

and the even more important empty

a visit to my old friend

2009-03-15T06:52:00.000-07:00

she and i have spent some time together.

i think that if i lived with her, i'd daily

invite myself onto her lap to eat a sandwich.

as it is, i only pause, eat at my knees with my fingers,

and find my body in her body, well fed, rested.

building

2009-03-15T06:14:00.000-07:00

she wakes to the image of two plastic lego blocks,

one yellow and one blue, placed perpendicular to one

another, slotted, building not up but beside.

this is what she thinks of: constructs, monads.

seeds germinating in the greenhouse, birds.

news and newness, the crossword before words,

the morning after a good night sleep, the first in

a bed, her bed, her room, with all its funny angles.

and she angles her perspective so that triangles

become rectangles, have corners for which she

can place beside one another and fill in the

current vacancies of space, of synapse.

so she wakes and crowds her moment with the

cement between the bricks, the gaps above,

below her now.

snow hare

2009-03-02T16:52:00.000-08:00

that's all really that needs to be seen:

it's all ears, eyes and seeking

tuesday before the garden

2009-02-24T04:29:00.000-08:00

"Let's face it. We're undone by each other. And if we're not, we're missing something. If this seems so clearly the case with grief, it is only because it was already the case with desire. One does not always stay intact."

-judith butler-

However, how often can we tighten our seams, hem up our edges?

Let's try, at least, to push up the sides of one another for now,

swaddle and feather, tuck each other and both our feet in,

at least through the end of this winter, at least until an aura

of blues and pinks form around the empty branches of buds.

at least until this world all starts to smell of undoing, of being,

of loosening cracks, saps, and syrups.

let's tighten our belts and backs until the honey starts to flow freely,

come april, june, or so.

The birds this all morning are all fat with winter, as it's 19 degrees.

you're all cold, right?

2009-02-18T04:48:00.000-08:00

a voodoo priestess left me a chicken foot on the back of my bicycle.

this is alarming, as everything else yesterday was easy, even the

batting down of brush and brambles in the woodland pasture,

even the directions printed and copied, even the sun, easy.

what, then does today offer me,

if sunset collided with such hardness as that grizzled leg?

should i be nervous? or should i pick it up and wield it

swiftly, with ease?

challenges met

2009-02-15T14:41:00.000-08:00

we feasted through the week, and now we're finished.

i suppose some like to consider sunday the first, but

i rather enjoy lavishing it as the last, the hem of mid february.

potting soil was mixed and bagged, chestnuts baked and ground,

valentine's day enjoyed with a small chocolate heart, sweet coffee,

some paper flowers and a meal of friends with straight backs.

some mortal fight left these blue feathers in the dead grass.

a week of losses, gains, triumphs, challenges, horses released

through gates

by us

lassa's new

2009-02-13T17:43:00.000-08:00

we constructed for lassa his own pen, now separate from the pregnant ewes,

now no longer able to ram the others away from sweet fermented grain.

he spent his first few hours pacing, tossing his horns about in a nervous fashion,

as you may twirl a pen cap in between your fingers, as you twist the paper napkin.

what does the animal need?

a tier in the hierarchy of shared space,

or isolated ownership of his own?

certainly not the wind or the blue tarp,

both which hung within the upper barn,

knocking and shoving at the calm.

we respect him and his hooves. we kneeled

to hammer in (i, crookedly, of course)

our gratitude and the nails of corrugated tin.

we spread hay, observed, watched not over,

but through, on eye level, the gates.

an outside lecture day

2009-02-12T05:06:00.000-08:00

he made the distinction that birds appear to move through the cosmos,

as compared with moths, who move as part of and therefore with the cosmos.

the little king koennig told farmers in a lecture series that

insects are the elemental beings as seen through a looking glass.

as alice, it resonates.

i observed a honey bee on the hem of my pants,

a woodpecker, stating his arguement against the solid nature of wood.

2009-02-10T05:10:00.000-08:00

Cy est Pourtraicte, Madame Ste Ursule, et les Unze Mille Vierges

Ursula, in a garden, found
A bed of radishes.
She kneeled upon the ground
And gathered them,
With flowers around,
Blue, gold, pink, and green.

She dressed in red and gold brocade
And in the grass an offering made
Of radishes and flowers.

She said, "My dear,
Upon your altars,
I have placed
The marguerite and coquelicot,
And roses
Frail as April snow;
But here," she said,
"Where none can see,
I make an offering, in the grass,
Of radishes and flowers."

-wallace stevens-