Pulling Sunshine up by the Roots
Pulling Sunshine up by the Roots
Contents:
Desert Snow
Night Crossing
In the Beginning
In Beauty
Migration
Evening Panorama
Changing Tense
Migration Dream
Arctic Craniotomy
Day and Night
Hell
The Cats
Once Upon a House
Eduardo
Almost a Polka
Job Done
Grace
Mysteries
Night’s Music
Beth
Local Birds
Rewriting the Border
On the Job
Owlcast
Night Flight
Desert Snow
for Regina
I’ll fall where I damn well please.
Victoria Edwards Tester, Rain
There’s a place that snow turns into mist
where silence is a road
that runs where miners once
hauled ambition up from
the desert on wheels that complained all the way.
They opened the earth up long enough
to find there was less silver
than in the winter trees, and so they
loaded their wagons with disappointment
and went back down into
the heat with whiskey as the devil leading
the way. Juncos and siskins
gather now and pick
what they can from the cold.
Watching is belonging here for a few
December days in the company
of birds and frost a short drive from
desert on the foxes’ trail. The angels
overhead remember where
each of us has come from
before arriving in a country filled
with thorns and rocks patrolled by
coyotes. To each
a shadow falls from a hawk ever present
like a handkerchief dropped
by the gods
onto the paths we have chosen.
It isn’t ore that draws us, there
are no drills or shovels
for reaching into secrets the land possesses,
just the moments drifting down
at year’s end with a star
in every flake. The saints of the season
kick back and let the sycamore
shine white on white
while oaks and pines bear the weight
of memory in their boughs
until the sky cracks open for more snow
to fall, the now snow, the childhood snow,
the snow of joys and sorrows, snow
as a gift, snow as a razor, white, white,
white with the single red flash in
a string of stinging peppers hung against the snow,
snow that picks the desert as a home just
because it damn well wants to.
Night Crossing
Long ago, late stars and oars upon the water,
a mountain drank its own reflection
and all eyes turned
toward the other side.
The ferryman set course
for the flickering lights, everyone
a stranger to the next in line, a diplomat’s wife,
autumn’s child, a seeker
of truth in the dark. Will you go
all the way to the top? she asked, will you take
the cable car as far
as the sun? The night leaned toward her
and told her the fare. She belonged
to the neighboring country, her money
wasn’t worth the wind
that was restless that night, that rippled
the flags on freedom’s pier.
But what is the price of beauty,
she said as her shadow
raised her from her seat, how much
against eternity?
In the Beginning
I want to reconsecrate things as much
as possible, I want to remythicise them.
Pier Paolo Pasolini
Before there was a wingbeat
to set the shiver free
that turned into the moon, before a mountain fell
from the unmapped sky,
before quail and mockingbirds and orioles
who trailed fire when they flew
came thunder loud enough
to touch.
So did the moment pass in which
all beginnings began. No advance notice.
No cooling winds. A patch
of winged sunlight descending
to the ridgeline beneath
which spiny lizards first opened their eyes to see
themselves glow, becoming myth
in tiny dragon scales.
In Beauty
A scar runs along the high rocks where the wind
turned back toward the other time
when people who once lived here doused
their fires and swept into baskets
the last of the beans they had picked
from mesquite trees and ground to a floury sweetness
then set out for that world
of which they knew little beyond
its scent of rain which carried
on the air all the way across the valley
they could see from this mountain when they stood
near the top having climbed
for one final look and nobody knows
because nobody left word
whether they were glad to leave or whether
they didn’t care about the view
which may have meant nothing to them
for all we know as we stare
at the peak and call it beautiful as we do
when we want nothing from a thing
but the promise that we shall see it again.
Migration
Last night the Monarchs flew
through our television set
on their way to Mexico.
There was a dry rustling
of wings against the air
and little shreds of cloud
drifted out from the screen
as they crossed the Sierra Madre.
People in bright costumes gathered
outside and looked through the window
expecting them to land
so we asked them to come in
and wait with us. Together
we watched as the Monarchs streamed
into the room and settled
on the furniture. Chairs were trembling.
Orange swirled around us
while our guests began to sing
and played an accordion.
We were happy in two languages
then snow began to fall
from the ceiling, and some
of the Monarchs died. They fell
around our feet and we all
began picking them up, trying to warm
life back into them, blowing
warm breath onto the wings,
but the frost had its way
and only a few survived. We opened
the window to let them out. Most
of those remaining went
off into the night, over the rooftops
and away toward Mexico. Just one
stayed behind. We tried to guide it
toward the window but it would not leave,
coming instead to rest
on the painting of a forest
that hangs behind the table, the one
so true to life we sometimes hear
a tree scream as it falls.
Evening Panorama
Across land that rolls and buckles through
a life zone before it becomes desert
changing colour from darkened ochre
to deep shadow and away
into a lighter blue where it ends
in a jagged rocky line against
the Mexican sky the view flows and tumbles
down from the point nightfall enters
the canyon and roosts
on an old battered sycamore
where vultures fold up their bones
having stared from the thermals all day
at the earth that spun beneath them slowly
ever slowly to the day’s last
carrion shred left drying on a sun bleached stone.
Changing Tense
The present tense is threatened with extinction.
“I see a koala” could disappear from speech
in seven years according
to a Brisbane Times report. Speaking
will become an act of remembrance
says the BBC
citing references to the Iberian lynx
and none of the languages spoken in India
contain words to protect
the peacock from poaching
or pesticides. “The wings on that albatross
measure twelve feet across”
might be replaced by a question
or embellished by a gasp of wonder
at such a bird and turned
into a quote from a long dead sailor.
“What is a panda?” will be answered
with silence. Even some nouns
such as tusks and mane
will appear in sentences referring to the past.
This is happening in English,
Spanish, Chinese.
It is happening.
Soon we will say
“It was happening while we watched.”
Migration Dream
Ninety-eight degrees and a grosbeak
looking in the back window; nine AM with no way back
from dreaming when the solid world
alights on a branch so slender
it bends to the will
of the sun. A scene directly from
the spirit world: a mixed flock
leaving mountains behind
gracefully scattered, grouped in such
variety the light could not identify them,
they winged with dusk
in sight and pulled a tree
uprooted, branches held by beaks,
with majesty across the sky.
Waking on the flyway,
migration beginning, waiting
for monsoon thunder
while daily highs climb from
seeing to distraction and
the orange flash of one
bird among the many
on their way
pulling sunshine up by the roots.
Arctic Craniotomy
We begin by shaving a patch
on the Earth’s crown
and clearing space to cut
through the skull and remove
a small flap so as
to see inside and focus on exactly
where to penetrate. There’s bleeding
to stop, and oil
for the taking. Break through a layer
of bone and one of shale, into brain
where ideas are formed
deeper into the darkness
into rich reserves and memories
of the accident
waiting for release
every one a gemstone yearning
for light while the oil is restless.
The injury is ready
to be treated, precision’s work
while the drills go down so far no
anesthetic works to block
the pain the planet feels. Time
for stitching back the skin; it’s
numb at first but soon
the feeling returns, a month of two
and then the hair
grows back and the only signs remaining
are the dents and small
irregularities, while
for land there is no surgeon, only
scars that shine by moonlight
where the caribou wander in migration
ever drawn toward
the north shore of the future.
Day and Night
Woodpecker knocking on the doors of fate
or against the siding
to a house that floats on good luck
and bad
while a hummingbird drinks from the light.
Tap, tap, tap, who’s there? Tap, tap, tap,
will it rain? Tap, tap, tap, do the numbers
that count money
count the bees?
What
does a roadrunner cost? is an oriole worth more
than a thrasher? tap, tap, tap,
are starlings no more
than small change? Why are there people
asleep on the street? Is a shopping cart a home?
Grubs in the tree bark,
insects in the walls, honey in the desert,
stars in the world beyond traffic
and street lights, beyond language, beyond zip codes,
where no password exists
to grant entry to night.
The owl’s calls say
go to the outskirts of knowledge
when the song the world is singing
goes out, out, out of tune.
Hell
I can’t take this Hell the man spoke
into his cell phone
just before he kicked the empty
Styrofoam container that happened
to be in front of him
as he bent slightly to look down
while his thoughts were clearly
far away from this corner
where two people waited for the bus
and gazed from their seat in the shade
down Seventh Avenue
in hopes of seeing it come
into focus through the midday heat
that gave the scene
an edge of desperation although
nothing much was happening
unless the traffic lights turned green
or somebody came out
from the supermarket with a car key
in hand. A crucifix was swinging
on a chain around the man’s neck.
I can’t take this Hell. I can’t take this Hell.
What was he talking about? How close
had he come to breaking point?
Those of us nearby did our best
to ignore him. He was shifting his body
to the left and to the right
and changing direction at every second
step with nowhere to go
except deeper into his rage. He needed
somebody to take hold of
his hand and say something to calm
his unquiet soul. All he had
was a device into which he could shout
and some garbage to crush. No one
approached to ask how they could help.
This is an angry time. People only speak
when they expect to be agreed with.
No one knew which side he was on, whose
Hell he couldn’t take.
The Cats
The cats don’t know there’s trouble
in the world. Their job is to look graceful
in disturbing times. The golden hour
is upon us, late light streaming
from the mountain ridge
and a chill in the air.
To lick their paws
in sympathy with those
who sleep on the streets, to stretch against
the window surrounded by an outdoor glow.
No borders for them, they open every cupboard
and occupy the highest places
they can reach.
Dreams flow
through their limbs while they sleep.
Nothing earthly matters
then, it’s a world of fish and backyard doves
in there. Elections never happened,
the pursuit of happiness translates
into Spanish, to carry concealed
means a mind full of ideas.
Just look
at how the more mature one occupies
a chair with regal demeanor, how the younger
one has all his outlaw spirit
still intact. The desert winter
sharpens itself under moonlight. They curl
into the moment and obey nature’s order
to serve the gods of elegance and sleep without pity.
Once Upon a House
A summer night, water flowing
through the cooler at the window on the west side
and the fan blowing east to the kitchen.
All the windows open. Radio
tuned to starlight;
it might really
have happened like this, beginning
in the bedroom when
Mrs. gave permission to her husband
and he knew there was
no cure. Little traffic
on McDowell, less
along Third Avenue
and no one walking on Palm Lane
to hear the second shot.
In the wooden shed behind the house, any job
unfinished had to stay that way.
Hammer, hacksaw, work bench all
lay quietly as if
to dream, and even
the mirror was blinded.
Eduardo
Eduardo pleads to be underpaid.
He appears without warning
to speak his only word
in English
and it’s work. It’s work
he wants; a few square feet
of American weeds
for his Mexican hands to pull
and some grass that knows no boundaries
to dig up with his illegal feet
pressing down on the blade
of the shovel. The sun
doesn’t scare him. He’s burnt
and his breath is alight
with alcohol, but he’ll stoop
and he’ll sweat
until he earns enough for lunch
from Circle K and then
come back to sweep and wash
the driveway clean. We get used
to Eduardo, always keep
some change just in case
he stops by. But he’s gone
we don’t know where.
We can’t call anyone to ask
or write to an address
inquiring after his health.
All we can do is keep watching
in case we see his red cap
and the bottle in a brown paper bag
he sets beside the orange tree
where he thinks we won’t find it
but he’s wrong. We found it
every time.
Almost a Polka
Radio signals from Agua Prieta
pass over the border fence
without inspection
and we listen in the comfort
of America to an accordion playing
a simple rhythm behind
songs laced with romance and loneliness
while insects tune their bodies
in the night and a bobcat stalks
shadows on moonlit trails
through grasses waiting
for monsoon rain
to fall with an echo like the one
in the announcer’s voice
when he calls up the latest offer
for something inexpensive
as if bargains were enough
to keep the men at home who now
are walking on the darkness
where the earth floats underneath them
and they drink
a toast to the future with water
from a plastic bottle that feels
too soft to the touch
to survive until morning.
Job Done
Lightning on the mountain’s shoulder,
doves spilling out
from the clouds. There’s yard work to be done
with a cold edge to
the power saw. The goldfinches
back away when the motor asks where
it should begin. An introspective rain
is falling,
the bushes need trimming
to make space for springtime to pass through.
The motor coughs itself alive
and gives orders for the blade to work
in a language half machinery and
half from Sinaloa. It’s chilly for March, a long
way from home, and questions
continue:
Cut here? Leave this? Is there desert
where you come from? And everything is neater
than it was. The sky is dark when
it asks why Americans want to close
the border to those who come
to do,
on a rainswept afternoon, the jobs hung out
to dry. And away goes the truck, with sunset
in the taillights, as mockingbirds
sing the last daylight to sleep.
Grace
At this the time of year the shadows
of clouds fall lightly on the mountains
and sit for a while on the slopes
whose rock pales and brightens
according to the sky as it threatens a storm
and promises rain. When it falls
it falls fast and it runs
over earth too hard for it to soak in,
runs like a river with no banks,
no name, no papers
to prove it belongs
on the map. But it’s real. It’s free flowing
fast moving water. When the afternoon
is dark the lights go on
in the house across the river
where a man believes in the integrity
of borders and in God. He keeps watch
for the disheveled wanderers
who sometimes stop
to ask for work, just enough to earn
a meal. Enough to prepare
to say Grace. So he lets them clean a barn
or do some chore to show
he is charitable. He gives them exactly
the time it takes for the truck
with patrolmen to arrive
then he sits down alone to begin
Our father . . .
Mysteries
About faith they were never wrong, the desert
angels. Black clouds
above the mission church, an owl
at night for each departing soul
and prayers for rain ride the thermals
every day. An echo, echo
marks the closing
of the wooden door as footprints
leave a dusty trail to midnight. Skunk time,
bats are saints flying in sacred space
and ringtails find a way
to bind their tails around belief.
Darkness is the miracle
that makes miracles
complete: the crops smile again, roadkill
comes back to life and inside
old adobe walls the organ plays without
the hands of a musician. Listen:
the notes
are walking on their toes
uphill on the stony trail
to be closer to the stars.
Night’s Music
One-twenty-eight AM, the sky can’t sleep,
radio tuned to starlight, time
to be part desert
where music crosses over from
a major to a minor key.
And it is beautiful to hear the sadness
when an accordion dreams,
the sound of distances collapsing
into melody that nests
in the ear. There’s an electric sparkle
in the dark, language
with no passport gaining entry to the night
and monsoon weather playing
through an echo chamber in the clouds.
Ay ay ay, spare a thought
for the rain, for a lost streak of lightning
that can’t find the way back home.
Beth
Cloudlight on the ridgeline, dust
yellowing below, blue wind
in all directions and a blind spot where
the sun should be. It’s been six months
since anybody saw the lady
whose mind escaped her when she fell
and the turquoise car in her driveway
is the only sign
of life today. She used to sit
outside and chat, took her dog a block
and back, complained a little
or a lot – it always was the same – and when
she came home from being cared for
turned a monsoon’s shade of mean.
Some days another car
parks next to hers, some days the silence
that surrounds her house
cries out for understanding. It must
be comfortable living
with air conditioning and cats, window blinds
down, listening for
a storm to break and rain
to be delivered to her door in cups
just large enough for her to stir some thunder in.
Local Birds
A Turkey vulture hatched out of the sun;
lost soul seeking directions
to better see the wonder of it all.
When Costa’s hummingbird rests on the lantana twig
that loops out from the shade, he looks left, looks right, looks
the daily news directly in its downcast face
He taps against the palm tree, questions the house
whose woodwork holds secrets Gila woodpeckers must find
an answer to: the afterlife of trees.
Feathered midnight, the owl calling to spirits
among the stars when
milk and honey run across the desert sky.
The nest woven into light and wind survives
storms that follow humans on the run. A hawk
can see there is no hiding place on Earth.
Rewriting the Border
It’s doves and thorns and sunsets
all the way into night, and blue mountains
float away at dusk. The border
isn’t what it used to be, no
Spanish is the Lovin’ Tongue or Marty Robbins
riding out of El Paso. Used to be
a line between the cowboy sky
and shops whose colors overflow
to make tourists feel as happy
as they couldn’t be at home. A hawk still hovers
with each wing in a different country
and ravens cross over with ease when they
dip and dive for joy, but there are
no visas for the jaguars
drawn by the scent of survival. Twenty pesos
for a dollar, undocumented sunlight,
new lives for old and corridos
from the radio playing
on an August roof in Phoenix. Taco Tuesday
in El Norte, deportation
on the menu every day. A flag of wind
still flying west of Lukeville, hammer tap
in a mechanic’s workshop, trucks
with hearts of steel between
Brownsville and Tijuana, highway never
sleeping, flan for dessert. A family lost
and a Rufous-capped warbler
in southern Arizona, slow river
leading a line of cheap labor
to the interstate; wasn’t that a time
when water was the passport
for anybody carrying their first home
in their pockets. Cheap labor on the move,
supply and demand, a cupful of rain
for a day digging fields. A trogon
calling from the oaks and sycamores. Summer
is his time before the sky opens;
fly south, fly north, never fly at all
for fear that dreams
come only in translation.
On the Job
Late glow on the slopes, desert streaming
between the ridgeline
and the streets below, Friday afternoon,
T-shirts spotted with the stains
a day’s work leaves behind
and cashiers
at the supermarket scanning
what the weekend needs. Mourning doves
for restfulness, grackles for
opportunism and he who all day
wheels the carts
stacks another line to steer
back to the entranceway. So much
to be done: bread to bake and orders
to compile, restrooms to be cleaned
and a country to be run. A painter
splashed white is picking
up fruit,
a man dressed in black
casually steps between coffee
and the cookie shelves with a sidearm strapped
conspicuously at his side. So much
to be done:
wash the floors, make
appointments, secure domestic peace
and spray the fruit to keep it fresh. Almost
Saturday, but there’s work
for the workers to do even when the sunlight
looks nervous. No rest
for the doctors, mechanics, plumbers
and all
who believe that even
a rudderless ship reaches port in a storm.
Owlcast
Here’s what we need to know today: the owls are well.
It’s mating season and they’re calling
close to home. Wings wide
beside the streetlamp, sudden glow
and plumage pale. There has to be
a house fire somewhere for the morning news,
has to be a presidential outburst
better suited
to a prime time sitcom
built around dysfunctionality.
New moon. Spirit voices. Midnight’s meditation.
Morning and a shower
of goldfinches out of the sun, first light
moving barefoot down the street and yesterday’s
headlines fading in the clouds.
There’s a war
and there’s a cease-fire, a scandal
breaking with high crimes
in low places. It’s rush hour, the traffic lights
are blinking: left-wing, right-wing, and the hawks
who roost beside the golf course
have a wing for each side
but they’re gliding
above it all, gracefully intent
on catching prey while foreign policy
becomes more foreign and executive orders
blow coast to coast in a storm. It’s a Madison Avenue
country with a Wall Street appetite
and news blowing in from all directions.
Fire, flood, deportation,
give me tariffs or give me
a voice from the spirit world, something soft
as feathers calling up the day.
Night Flight
Two hours of the year to go
and one step from the back door into darkness.
Quiet except
for trial fireworks as the mountain
counts down. Time on a tightrope.
Across the wash a few windows
still awake and streetlamps on their toes
straining for a view into the future.
There’s an owl
perching in the yard
and when her moment comes
she flies at barely shoulder height,
dipping first then rising,
on the way
to where spirits meet
with a wingspan twelve months wide.
Acknowledgements:
Amethyst Review: Night Crossing, Mysteries, Night Flight
Black Poppy Review: Arctic Craniotomy
Bolts of Silk: In Beauty
Canary: Evening Panorama, Changing Tense
Canyon Echo: Migration
Cholla Needles: Day and Night
Eunoia Review: Once Upon a House
International Times: Desert Snow, Migration Dream, Night’s Music, Owlcast
Lothlorien Poetry Journal: In the Beginning
Neologism Poetry Journal: Beth
The New Verse News: Grace, Rewriting the Border, On the Job
Parting Gifts: Eduardo
Poem: Job Done
Third Wednesday: Hell, Almost a Polka
Verse-Virtual: The Cats