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Dan Schneider - Poetry, Prose.

In his own words:

the briefcase

Dan has never owned a briefcase, and was insistent, even after much prompting by me that he never will.

THE INDIAN KILLER
*l943, El Dorado Canyon, Nevada

Silly subjects, like lassitude, never came up
as Jose and Henry climbed up from the river,
to the cave where Queho's body was discovered
by the prospectors who, on a gold mining trip,
hung on the seep of the past,
   freed the state from fear, at last,
of that crazy old Paiute's evil, forever.

In the cave there remained, for the young boys to see,
knickknacks of his victims, which by then had begun
to rust and molder, decay and stale, go rotten
as his soul, which always fascinated Jose,
as the boys pawed through the things
   of the dead flesh of seasons,
who told Henry it all began in 1910:

"Ya see, old Queho was a gimp- with a bum leg-
and for years kids on the reservation would jerk
him around about his limp, till Queho could take
it no more, and ran away. He refused to beg,
like the others, at the white
   man's knee. Instead, he would fight
back. That's when he ran into this Harry Bismark,

a big bully from back on the reservation.
They argued over lots. They never got along.
So, Queho got his gun and shot him dead. Bang-bang!
But, no one cared at all, till he killed a white man
with a two-by-four. He beat
   the shopkeep to death, and beat
it to the canyon, which began a decades-long

manhunt, which should'a been easy, considering
his limp made his tracks so easy to spot. But, then,
nothin's ever easy as it seems. Something went
off in his brain. He went loco- began killing
like mad: many prospectors,
   and down in Arizona
a family of seven was gunned down. And just when

it looked like he was gone for good, he killed again-
this old woman, named Maude Douglas, shot in the back,
in 1919- with nothing left but the tracks
of a gimp. But, nothing would happen until when,
a couple of old miners
   were both butchered and blinded,
they offered three grand on his head. But, it would take

twenty-one more years before Queho would be seen
again. That's when the prospectors found his mummy-“
"Aw, Jose, do ya really think I’m a dummy?
Fallin' for one a' your tall stories, sight unseen?",
as an Indian coldness
   merged with the wet young tautness
of one of the boys' fears, drifting to infusion,

the buildup of movement, unmoving in Henry,
who knew how to play a bad hand well, and within
that cave played his as well as Queho's, and began
to deny Jose's tale, "There ain't nothin' ta see!”,
a star that casts a coldness,
   as the small ball of nearness,
which leapt to his face, and the refracting within.

ELLIS ISLAND SONNETS

June 14th, 1897

What plunged into light was the opened sea,
in the mid-flight power of summer fears,
misting the harbor. What we could not see
was where it started. But then no one cared
as we watched it burn down, and smelled the pine
push life over to Brooklyn and beyond
in a seamy way, some new paradigm 
that mixed air with sea. Only land could end
and we stood firm upon it, in bare feet
or socks- our possessions long gone to smoke
and tears which suddenness refused to stoke,
as I turned to the West- as if to greet
the ghosts that awaited- years hence I’d groan
thinking what the sun must have felt that morn.

May 18th, 1901

Thinking what the sun must have felt that morn,
my son Ivan hid in the bunks all night,
as the money changers took all I’d known,
returning shiny pennies to delight
the ignorant men. I was no such thing, 
and went to Commissioner Powderly
with my list of names, and all that was wrong.
The Commissioner called it a travesty,
and some were fired, like a year ago,
when we first arrived here- Ivan and me-
with dreams of a life finally lived free,
but the months of delays had taken so
much hope from us that it naturally seems
that vice is more than just what virtue dreams.

September 21st, 1907

That vice is more than just what virtue dreams
was what Mr. Cagliari had said
when we left Napoli’s shores. Now that seems
an eon ago. We wait here, instead
of making the Island. Steerage, 3rd Class,
is what we are called, and why we must wait,
now thirteen days in 90° heat,
while those with connections easily pass.
Three days ago, when first inspection came,
I stripped to nakedness. The nurse would feel
between my legs, to see whether I’d wail,
to give away things my body revealed;
but I learned from the others to conceal
the larva of my tongue made butterfly.

January 21st, 1917

The larva of my tongue made butterfly
wings in my throat- so, sick, I lay in bed
for days or weeks- or is it months instead?
I came to the ward as Gelic Warzschansky,
and was told I merely had a sore throat,
and a few days rest would help me recover;
so they stuck me in with the chalk-marked coats:
the Croat with a K- insane as a dog,
the Scotsman with conjunctivitis C,
the Ethiope with child- marked Pg,
and the S-marked Jew who could only beg
for unsaid things he could no longer say,
till I left when they called on Adam Walters,
and old eyes cascaded new Milky Ways.

November 20th, 1919

And old eyes cascaded new Milky Ways, 
yet the rats always waited outside the hall,
and after the meals they would finish all
the leftovers. Then came the height of each day
when the past made its way into eager hands,
from those left behind, or those on their way,
with tales of what happened in their homelands,
and hopes for a better American way.
The Revolution in Russia was still
in the air, and Lev Schazoven would learn
that the pogroms had ended, and Lenin
was giving the peasants acres to till.
But that was past, many months he had crouched
to live in this land, flourish in its touch.

February 3rd, 1923

To live in this land, flourish in its touch
was all Greta Wagner wanted to do-
it is true. Like the others she learned to hush
herself like the Frenchman, the Turk, and Jew,
did before her. She learned to stand in queue
to eat, to move, or to relieve herself,
too. It was here she worried for her health
as deportation inspection was due.
Then a sister from Catholic Charities came
and vouched she would not be a public charge,
and would give her a chance to find a job,
and provide her with food, and give her a room.
It was only then that the stamp came down,
for the sun, in that room, finally shown.

July 4th, 1926

For the sun, in that room, finally shown,
as McGinley swept away what was left
of explosions, which he wondered and hid
from when Sherman freed him into the flow 
of liberty his people had been cleft
from. As others slept he closed to dark and bred
what plunged. Into light was the opened sea.

38. MORNING MIST NEAR GLACIER POINT, WINTER

General Nathan Bedford Forrest

(1)

His hands would disestablish the past
with a mist of rising whiteness
over dead things, if he could
only describe them to himself: rocks,
stumps, cricket shells, the fury that lumps
all recollection of Fort Pillow
to a whistle barely heard down dark corridors
which knows no better its own source. Removed,
the years are what stand between the things
and their recognition. He no longer walks
with the surety of millions, nor a sky
laced with clarity. He has not yearned
long enough, nor learned that what is bare
is all that is left, revealed only at the end
of other things- snow, evaporation, the flow
of whiteness streaming in nighted winds. Memory
is a yip the next morning, the crush of ghost feet
rushing up to him, dropping to knees,
begging; all this is the dander of an old man
flaking himself into another form, a place
that never was- yet is, right in front, for all
to see, plying the porches where chairs rock
on, and stare at things they cannot see, but do.

As white recedes, uninterested in dying,
spring becomes a rumor that will not desist.
Memories do their best to mist, and preserve
nothing for existentialists who harness power
from the sloping vision, the snow
which evaporates over dead stumps,
the trees longing to leave behind their earth
before another snow again exceeds
the things it hides, beneath and well.
An old man, reasonless. This hell
removes the human things that give
to purpose, nonsense, hatred, becoming
an ugly ring that gnarls when reading
of war that soldiers made, upon a ground
that a photograph has, yet has also lost.

(2)

What decanters the vision is what reflects
off unreflecting things that pause
to lose the sun. Snow. Applause. Background noise
that forest creatures do not expect.

Where does the difference between the seen
and the real give way to man? He sits
and forces a smile from his self, inured
to remembrance, immured to its image.

The grass pokes through drying snow, and unmakes
the world that was, nudges its way past dying
outcrops, the head of a dead mantis takes on
the image of a trembling hand, dark and gripping

for gripping alone. The air resists nowhere.
All bodies become one with the pile outside
Fort Pillow. Wherefore cynosure?
A billion year acid learns the truth of acids,

where a new anatomy is reckoned
from the slope of the hill, stained in white
by refrozen snow, crystalled into something
no seer- nor mere man- can focus, a recognition

vanquished too long ago. What is needed
to soothe the pines, is what they get- the mist.
They are tuning forks of beauty and blood,
behind the snow which goes on

being, into the past where what lasts
is the sojourn only the living take. Not
memory dismisses the weighted world so freely,
nor gesturing hands lend it gravity.

"A GOOD CHRISTIAN BURIAL"
April 18th, 1897
Aurora, Texas

"Hold on, now, let me get the facts straight, Mr. Weems-"
"No!- You hold on, Sonny-boy, jes' sheddup an' let
me speak! As Ah be sayin'- uh .... now Ah forgets ....
Oh, no- Ah means YES! Now Ah remembers the scene:
Ah wuz out on mah rounds- as a U.S. Army
Signal Service officer- when- " "Uh, Mr. Weems-
you're a blacksmith." "Son, things ain't always whut they seems!
Now, Ah wuz a-makin' mah rounds, when Ah did see
this spectacular crash

at about 8 am- no, 7!" "Uh, um, 6
is what you originally said, sir." "That's right!
'Twas about 6 am las' week- um .... No, las' night
when- " "It was yesterday morning, sir, when it hit
the wire services." "Dagblammit!- 6 am!
It wuz 6 am when this flock a' red airships
come invadin' ar burg with spectacular drips
a' light, like a thunderhead's rays rakin' the loam
as if it wuz a match

lightin' up the countryside, settin' all ablaze!- “
"But- " "Now, don't interrupt me, son, it ain't polite!-
As the invaders came the townsfolk wuz uptight
an' fearin'- till Ah led me a band a' mah bohs
out on the range where they wuz settin' their ships down,
till we uncorked ar guns- in a fight you ain't seen
since Gee-Ronny-Moe gave himself up- that's'a been
ten or twelve years? Anyways, they picked on the wrong town
in Texas to invade,

an' when me an' the bohs got back to Aurora
we wuz welcomed like the heroes we truly wuz- “
"And this happened when, sir?" "It wuz las' week- becuz-
Ah means- yesterday- Ah ain't tryin' to fool'ya!-
Ya see, all the ships took off an' got quick away,
excep' for the las' one, which we brought to the ground,
in a hail of lead, an' whut remained, from beyond
the beyond wuz the wee pilot, with skin a' gray-
we heard him as he prayed

to his Lord- an' we wuz all touched in a deep way-
till we croaked'im! But, us being good-Christian men,
we brought him to the church to be given a clean
soul by the reverend- then to the cemetery
we went an' buried'im- " "Now, wait a minute, sir- “
"Now, son- " "No! You wait now. I've listened, Mr. Weems,
to your sordid little tales- not a bit which seems
true in the least. Do you expect me to concur
with your tall tales and lies?

Mr. Weems, I am from the DALLAS MORNING NEWS,
and don't believe what you're saying- for yesterday
you claimed there was a single ship, not an array
of invaders- " "Metzenbaum wuz your name?- A Jew?"
"MR. WEEMS! Please!- Furthermore, yesterday, you said
the lone ship crashed as it ran into the windmill
of Judge Proctor- " "But, son- " "Furthermore, sir, you still
made no mention of the town on fire- and red
was the hue of the skies-

not the airships! And the pilot's skin color green-
not gray! Mr. Weems, furthermore, there is no proof
that anything you are telling me is the truth.
Yesterday, you claimed a terrific explosion
littered acres with debris, an unknown metal
inscribed with hieroglyphics- but produce no trace
of said explosion, nor fires, nor outer-space
pilot- it seems everything's disappeared- it all
vanished within a night!"

"Seems strange to you, too? Boh, Ah'm glad Ah ain't alone!
Ah thinks the govuhment is doin' things with those
invaders from Mars!- Ya sees- Ah knows whut Ah knows-
an' Ah knows this: T.J. Weems is honest as stone- "
"Perhaps just thick...." "Whut wuzzat? Nevermind! Listen
up- whut beasts tear at strangeness- " "Sir, I've got to go.
But I'm sure you are as true as a summer snow-
if you can point me to the plot of the fallen
pilot, all will be right."

"The pastor took care a' that- then he died las' night,
so no one knows where he's buried- the strangest thing-
"I see, such a shocking development you bring
to my attention, sir. But, he was buried- right?"
"Of course he wuz! Ah prayed over his grave!" "The one
you don't remember? That only the pastor knew?"
"Uh.... that's right! It wuz the reverend, me, any a few
of mah bohs who brought his spectacular ship down-
but it wuz dark, an' late- "

"I thought it was morning- " " -so Ah don't remember
much, but Ah don't lie! My mama said that a lie
burns, as well as brands, a man, an’- " Mr. Weems, I
need to be going. But, the body was interred?"
"Indeed! A good Christian burial wuz whut he
got! Even though he wuz an invadin' Martian
come to enslave Mankind!- did Ah tells ya a' when- ?"
"No!- Goodbye, sir!" "Yessir, here, in Aurora, we
always gets the facts straight!"

THE END

THE GREAT IRISH FAMINE

Although they wander and roam
while centuries unfold,
Erin calls her children home:
that land between our souls.

*          *          *          *

           (1)

     THE JOINING
Bridget Behan, 1839

A Clooney no more! I was Mrs. Behan,
wife of my beloved- the handsome Patrick
Behan, of old County Cork!
Yes! I was his wife, his lover, his woman!
Ne'er should we have been parted;
though it hurt me to go from my parents' home
I did it- regretless- for I had a dream
that had yet to be started,
as I cried into the unsuffering air
of my youth, on that day, where
the end began.

* * * * * * * *

When things begin in the loam
they all return to their holes.
Erin calls her children home:
that land between our souls.

* * * *

(2)

BLACK ‘47
Derek Behan, 1847

The Irish Question was not what we pondered
as we pulled the dead tubers up from the ground.
We worried of The Poor Law and road fever
      and the bodies strewn around:
Yes! There lay McGuffy, O’Carroll and Quinn.
I played with those boys just a few months ago.
The Landlord then told us: “Get out! Go begin
to look for a new life!” It began to snow
when Mama and Papa took us toward the docks
of Galway town, and the great Boston Packets.
Poor Papa was tired of breaking the rocks
into pointless roads, and his too-small jacket
he wrapped around Mary and me as he wept
and told us he loved us. Then we sailed away
from Ireland, which slept deeply, as it slept.
      He cried from the pier: “One day,
soon, your mother and I shall see ye again!”
But, we never saw him. Such the ways of men,
      be they poor, or wealthier
than gods. Yet, Mama came for us the next year-
or was it two years?- or, maybe, even more?
      In time I grew healthier,
and Mary did, too. But, we never forgot
that land, nor our parents, nor- I- the black rot
      of the tubers, nor the seep
of my feet in the bogs, nor the black winter
it began: this pride I denied too long- a
      monster staggering to Hope.

* * * * * * * *

When Hope forms a parish dome
it forms, also, Despair's bowl.
Erin calls her children home:
that land between our souls.

* * * *

(3)

THE DEAD AND THE LIVING
Patrick Behan, 1849

What is required is more than I have to give. The hungry grass took it all, and took my children from me. Bridget still loves me. She sleeps in this hole, in the fetid steerage. I have failed. She is with child again. What manner of man am I? How I long to pass over....

The Father told me: “Jesus is always with ye!” He lied. We are alone. When mist dissipates it leaves nothing. That is what mist is. Last Tuesday, on deck, for twenty minutes, I breathed in the salt, and it all became clear. Sean and Caitlin and Bridget can do better. How I long to pass....

We are far from America, not so far from home. If we never slept would we lie about our dreaming? I dream of our wedding. I dream of the past. In the day I count Sean’s growing ribs. The gruel is spoiled. The air is rank. I am still. The Learys make too much noise above us. How I long to....

Is this New York City we head to? Or is it Boston? Or is it Philly? Or New Orleans? Or Quebec? I do not care. It is not Ireland. Phlegm is my companion. The Queen is not. O’Doul lingered many days in the gutter. Papa, you’ve been dead since ‘22. Well civilized. How I long....

One day we all shall return to the old country. The whole family. The whole nation. We shall reclaim Derek and Mary. And I shall provide. I shall be the man Bridget needs. All one needs is recognition. To know one is needed. To know what passes is not always the good. How I....

I am transformed. The Queen has succeeded. God bless the Queen!- that Virgin Bitch! Neal Noonan wrote me: “When we arrived in Boston, they laded us on to pallets, the dead and the living- from these coffin ships- and hosed us down as we lay on the docks. There were three bodies on me. It took sixteen minutes to get up.” How....

I must go, now. I must leave. The Atlantic is deeper than my will. Deeper than God. Deeper than Erin. Bridget, I love thee. But, I am a failure. A wretch. A beggar. No man. There is no one above board at 2 a.m. I shall do it. I shall not be missed. Jesus loves me. But, I am alone. ... . .... .. .... .... .

* * * * * * * *

Erin passes as a flame
between those who are not whole.
Erin calls her children home:
that land between our souls.

* * * *

(4)

ADVERTISEMENTS
Mary Behan, 1856

They pay better in Boston. So, I left home
when my ad was responded to. I left home,
and my siblings and mother. When I left home
it was for money (or marriage?). I left home
once. Have you ever left home?

Twenty dollars a month was what I sent home
so my sisters would not starve. What is a home?
Is it where you were or where you are? A home
is where I work. The Mastersons have a home
where I work. Young James is handsome. He knows home
is what you are. He is home

to me. I remember Mama took me home
from the docks of New York City. I was home,
for a while. To get me and Derek home
she had placed an ad. She had reclaimed her home
for a time. We were poor. To save our home
I left mine. And Derek left his. We left home.
But, just one time, I went home.

* * * * * * * *

Nothing comforts like the warm
arms of a family whole.
Erin calls her children home:
that land between our souls.

* * * *

(5)

THE PLUG UGLIES
Sean Behan, 1857
July 4th

Five Points is the place. I want
to become a Plug Ugly.
I am six feet- even more
with my high hat held high. I
      just want to kill
      a Dead Rabbit.
      O, what a thrill-
      I must have it!
To kill a Dead Rabbit- I
love to do it; even more
than beating the Bowery
niggers who have what we want:

a job on the docks. But, that
can wait. The Dead Rabbits call.
Who cares what we are fighting
for? We are strong, healthy men
      who want to kill
      some Dead Rabbits.
      O, what a thrill-
      we must have it!
To kill a Dead Rabbit. When
will it stop? When the shouting
ends, and we have killed them all,
is when it will end. And that

is that. I say: "If you don't
like it you can kiss my ass!"
We will own this town. And I
will help my boys. On this day
    I want to kill
many Rabbits!
      It is my will-
      I will have it!
Here, I kill a Rabbit. Say
what you will. But, what have I
to lose? No bonny young lass
waits home for me. And I won't

go home. I will join this gang
of Plug Uglies. Here, a man
makes a family. And I
will make mine. Till the Guardsmen come
      I will just kill
      more Dead Rabbits.
     0, when a thrill
      becomes habit
it loses none of its fun.
Only friends are lost. But, I
am Irish, as now, as then-
into Hell's Kitchen I sing!

* * * * * * * *

Through the passage of the storm
many were killed, but not all.
Erin calls her children home:
that land between our souls.

* * * *

(6)

                                               DAGGER JOHN
                                              Caitlin Behan, 1863
                                                      July 17th

The burning, the looting- 0, how it went on!
          And the poor- who could not buy their exemption-
                  cried in the streets,
                         bid their retreats,
            when the Army came to put down the riots,
            until the prelate stepped forth, and gave his speech-
                              all went quiet:

“They call you rioters, but I cannot see a riotous face among you. I thank God that I came to this country, where no oppression exists. If you are Irishmen- and your enemies say the rioters are Irishmen- I am also an Irishman, but not a rioter. If you are Catholics, as they have reported- then I am a Catholic, too....Every man has his troubles, but I think with the poet that it is better to bear our slight inconveniences than to rush to evils....When these so-called riots are over, and the blame is justly laid on Irish Catholics, I wish you tell me in what country I could claim to be born....Ireland, that has been the mother of heroes and poets, but never the mother of cowards!”

          I remember the loss, and the Irish boss
            of the Negro washerwoman down the street
                  who looked at me-
                        like I was free,
            not knowing the lowly wage I made. She mocked
            the way I talked, for she knew a deeper loss-
                              will she forget?

* * * * * * * *

Erin remembers her own,
and never forgets her whole.
Erin calls her children home:
that land between our souls.

*          *          *          *

               (7)

THE ORPHAN TRAINS
    Shirley Behan, 1864

I remember riding on the orphan train
to Muncie, Indiana, out to the Plains,
      where the rails stretched forever,
and the future was green as old Ireland.
Where it was I could never remember, nor
care. I dreamt of Injuns and Davey Crockett,
      an Irishman- you know- and
a Protestant, to boot!- No one is perfect.
I know I was not. They called me a truant,
      and took me away. The rails
stretched even farther. One day this continent
would be joined by the steel of a Gaelic sweat.
But, on this day in May is when I first met
      my new family- the Clarks-
and my best friend- Sara- who taught me the way
of the Bible, the land, and independence-
      which I treasure to this day,
for Sara and I ran away to the West-
first to Missouri, back in ‘67,
where I waitressed from morning until the dark,
      and where Sara did her best-
but failed, and was killed by a stray bullet from
a fleeing bandit of an outlaw gang. Some
      say Jesse James was the man
who did her in. But, no one knows. Time moved on
and I moved west, moving farther from my past:
I never met my father. Mother died when
      I was ten. And my brothers
died- one in a fight, one avoiding the draft.
And my sisters- fair Caitlin became a nun,
      and old Mary struck it rich
in Boston, with her employer-cum-lover,
as I moved west to Tombstone, Arizona
in time for The Shootout. I was aloner
      than a Clanton in a ditch.
So, I went west to California. I saw
John L. Sullivan box, and met Tom McGraw-
      my husband-to-be, my why
for living. Then, we opened up a bar, moved
to Washington- which in 1889
entered the Union my family so loved,
      and where so many would die.
Then, we started a farm- guess what we grew there?
The bane of our lives- the infamous tuber-
      which began our sojourn
from before I was born. But, isn’t it such
in this life that first we must fall, and then cry
of the past- that which a touch can never touch.
      It hurts to let go. Good-bye!

“I used to be snow white, but I drifted.”
-Mae West

THE GROSS CLINIC
by Thomas Eakins

AS THE TWENTIETH CENTURY A QUARTER BEFORE

Be aware of the lines. The red and the light
drift like shadows over the remove
of the black-draped figures huddling above
the ill. The taunt of this Gross to the horrified
mother; no roses in the bed of her mind. He seems
to say, "Away! Away, all you, who will not...." Look,
with a distance strange, he seems unmoved, to who has seen
the gorge and regurge of Spain, Kampuchea, Verdun and Normandy,
the sanitation of Grozny, Bataan, Nagasaki and Rwanda,
the silence of East Timor, Kashmir, Uganda. And Armenia
is the revolt from reason that the dimly-lit see
from the safety above. The amphitheater
of the present presents us with the windy light
of perspective, places us all inside those who will not
flinch, those who do not turn away from the open wound.

Too real, too real, the cries go up,
and the palms which avert the eyes are praised,
as if saviors of innocence from the drowning
swoon the too-white thigh does not occlude.

No temperance of purpose can stem. The brave
brave the light of effort. This slide from faith
to strength is where teamwork is vital. No
man can operate alone. The modern way
of science is a long, unbroken line; the great developer
of such. There is no going back
to the tribal hoodoo and chants. Alone,
it is reason that glows from the Master,
his brow the beacon no helmet can dim;
the strength of his vision is prime.

But, is it a dream? You wonder
from your smothered place in the grandstand,
behind the dissection. You writhe. The horror
of mute responsibility protagonizes
the glare. You cannot see his
hidden, devil-like eyes, the writhing of his
jowls, heavy with sideburns hiding any corruption
of power. The shape of desire is a surgeon's
scalpel. These quick, eager (some say obscene) ministers
of secular inwardness fury and prey
upon the fallen, as if a pack of beasts,
blinded, on the innocent. Incurable
is not the diagnosed. Fixed on the wound
we all remain manque. Even the fine hewn line
of the anesthetist's parted hair points
to the point. Where we remain,
breathing the needed, but oft-unnoticed, air,
my friend, nescient of a bell jar time:

0 che dulce cosa e quesa prospettiva!

46. MOUNT WILLIAMSON, SIERRA NEVADA, FROM MANZANAR

1. Theodore Roosevelt

It is the rocks which dominate, and tell all
that they are here, and remain, have always been more
than those transient things which wander
into our living, for a  while, wringing out
memories, and its little things, which scuttle
and hide the remarking of years
which are its age, even from it. 
                                                 Here 
begins Existence, spelled with capital E. Thrust 
out like the largest boulder in view- itself
a world teeming with water and living within
and around its center, where roots thrive
to death, where the rays of warmth
dare not tread on the masculine
displeasure with fondling things forthright
and hard.
               Already differences emerge
from the recumbrance of the great pose
of the thousands of rocks before us
confusing only themselves with their tales.
                                                                     That
one, born far in the Sierra Nevadas,
over three hundred thousand years to get to this
plain. The one to its left, jutting
like a platform of light- some glacier’s toy
abandoned in swift senescent retreat
from those Ages when Ice was everything
but the centuries’ cost to darkness.
They are little boys left to the drift
of their own manhood, blindly, timidly,
do some seem, in brief pauses of expression
that lilt and posture like mimes
on personless streetcorners, where tears dare
not fill.
            What flows is not liquid nor warm,
those most tempting of possibilities,
to an equanimity of daring, which carries
little through the eons it takes to place
each boulder perfectly for the reconnoiter
of souls rapt with equipoised longings, 
the cooperation of slime molds which envisions
and destroys each vision with more
vision.
           There is nothing wrong with becoming
if you accept being. What life, there, is
is placed there by the heart, carried not
via ice, but through seeing, intimately,
that earth and its progeny are masters
of the man who leaps outward too much,
and often, at times inappropriate,
suddenly joying where contemplation is
keen. Each revelation flickers its own
sight, and subsequent light, through clouds,
where we will not avert our eyes- 
why look through towers and steeples
for the full flight of adventure
when the real extends ladders
inward, and for all the soundless things
to release the pent-up, hidden, and true,
where the sky- after all- comes
to touch itself, too.

2. Abraham Lincoln

It is the sky, only, with all its nature shown,
where the natural is all that is left. It looks,
but senses little of our backwardness. It hears,
but listens not to the energies of the beast,
man, child, you, ensorcelled of light. Who knows
of a truth beyond where these clouds must break? 
Shafts river, run, and dimple small boulders 
which foreground your gaze. I know
what emerges from behind each rock. The child,
in all things, which forces us skyward
past tarns of white, residing in the miens
of mountains turning faces toward the divine,
free from living, and its end. We see
death alone. Columns of marching dead,
declined by the Creator, moving our eyes
inexorably upward, in a font of realizing
that the clouds dapple over more
than our day, always in this day, a purity
of space and spaces that time flowers
ceaselessly at each viewer, however remote,
at each viewing.
                          It is the Earth,
itself, not the Sun, nor the Firmament,
which knows itself well enough to demur
our petty meanderings of place and purpose,
the inseparate threads which are beyond
desires and dreams. There, small animals
gather courage in the thin atmospheres
of trying, where hours are minutes, or perhaps not
more than a now, conflated with a final glare
over the vast liquids, illuminating the dry
and forgotten, blacked from recognition,
by what moves and is moved. Then the dimming,
far dimmer than the Dog Star’s twin,
proceeds, and illuminates all that is living
from within outward, shown to the world
in elementary being, as nothing of depth
nor substance. And opposites become 
themselves always, and ever pushing
ideas of God and purpose to the center
of faith, securing conscious destiny,
or claiming it so.
                           Certain
elements anneal themselves in the presence
of their own enormous regard. And the sky 
is different- no living warmth permeates
its openness. It overwhelms the living
with the intimate communion of a dire tenderness-
a thought of what we once were, hidden
behind the clouds which cradle our star, pressing
itself to ourselves, with a long fugitive light
pondering the eyes it enters, and drawing breath
from the breathers in gasps & o’s,
assuring us that distance is not finality-
nor should it be- a cry that mirrors
the brightest noon. What is received
must be released, even as the terrified
are indistinct from the adoring. The eagle
braces itself onward in the crack of evening
it dares glide steeply into.
                                         It sees little
of where it remains. Everywhere
the seers estrange themselves in this world
of objects and possessions. The rocks do not
know they are part of this vision. They break
it with ignorance of ignorance. Yet, we arrange,
rearrange, and twist purpose back in, and posture
and startle ourselves at the brink of sky,
as if a final fillip, or goodbye, to that
which lingers, misting in to rain,
or its seeming. It is not the natural
which has been left, and seen.

THE BUTTERFLY

The Argument: On December 10th, 1997, 23 year old Julia "Butterfly" Hill climbed up 180 feet into a giant redwood tree she named "Luna", to protest the plans of the Pacific Lumber Company, which sought to raze it and the other redwoods nearby. Her sit garnered the assistance of sundry environmental groups and attention of the international media, and did not end until an agreement was reached with Pacific Lumber that spared Luna and all the wildlife within a 200 foot buffer zone. After 738 days the Butterfly's feet touched earth, again, at 10 a.m. PST on December 18th, 1999.

The crust of winter's crumble was felt
that autumnal evening. Brief, chill, now gone,
the night sounds were full, not far
between. The girl, on her 6 x 8 platform,

is bundled, save for her naked, sap-ridden feet,
the better to grip her tree. Goodnight.
She kisses it with her toes, and reads
of the earth receded in its matter, on the round

below, forgotten in moments dreaming commands.
Yet, this high, time does as it chooses. Celebrities
buzz by with a nostalgia for the absolutes, and leave
the legacy of Luna to her. At length

she looks out over the mountains and startles
herself as time seems to unreel in the slightest
movements of a flying squirrel eyeing her
tonight. In its eyes she sees Luna’s eyes

in hers. The two balls filled in a more human
ghostliness in the miniscule black that windows
the naked moonshine in all others. There is another
within. She sees Elmo, the Saint Bernard pup

she had, when her father surprised her at Christmas,
when she was eight. The dog grew old and was lying
on its side. Its eyes wearied by this poetry
in notion, alone. Wet with the sweat of the immediate

end. In its eyes a man comes with a calm
demeanor and needle. He injects the dog,
whose breathing slows to rich and simple huffs
until the first set of eyes are no longer

eyes, in the eyes reflecting other eyes. Outside,
in the night the girl learns to trick peace
from the dome of life not made for her, and not fun,
and certainly not moot enough for her not to ask

of the squirrel: What are you doing this for?
All the eyes cut through to the squirrel
saturating all with its being, wide as her
childhood closing in on the simplest things

in this world. Her toes curl around the bark, radiating
all the pressures of her past into doubtlessness.
And, just as it seems the eyes will speak,
the girl leaves its answer where she will find it. Outside.

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