Vixen

By W. S. Merwin

Comet of stillness princess of what is over

high note held without trembling without voice without sound

aura of complete darkness keeper of the kept secrets

of the destroyed stories the escaped dreams the sentences

never caught in words warden of where the river went

touch of its surface sibyl of the extinguished

window onto the hidden place and the other time

at the foot of the wall by the road patient without waiting

in the full moonlight of autumn at the hour when I was born

you no longer go out like a flame at the sight of me

you are still warmer than the moonlight gleaming on you

even now you are unharmed even now perfect

as you have always been now when your light paws are running

on the breathless night on the bridge with one end I remember you

when I have heard you the soles of my feet have made answer

when I have seen you I have waked and slipped from the calendars

from the creeds of difference and the contradictions

that were my life and all the crumbling fabrications

as long as it lasted until something that we were

had ended when you are no longer anything

let me catch sight of you again going over the wall

and before the garden is extinct and the woods are figures

guttering on a screen let my words find their own

places in the silence after the animals

by Robert Penn Warren

In the orchidaceous light of evening
Watch how, from the lowest hedge-leaf, creeps,
Grass blade to blade, the purpling shadow. It spreads
Its spectral ash beneath the leveling, last
Gold rays that, westward, have found apertures
From the magnificent disaster of the day.

Against gold light, beneath the maple leaf,
A pale blue gathers, accumulates, sifts
Downward to modulate the flowery softness
Of gold intrusive through the blackening spruce boughs.
Spruces heighten the last glory beyond by their stubbornness.
They seem rigid in blackened bronze.

Wait, wait— as though a finger were placed to lips.
The first star petals timidly in what
Is not yet darkness. That audacity
Will be rewarded soon. In this transitional light,
While cinders in the west die, the world
Has its last blooming. Let your soul

Be still. All day it has curdled in your bosom
Denatured by intrusion of truth or lie, or both.
Lay both aside, nor debate their nature. Soon,
While not even a last bird twitters, the last bat goes.
Even the last motor fades into distance. The promise
Of moonrise will dawn, and slowly, in all fullness, the moon

Will dominate the sky, the world, the heart,
In white forgiveness.

 

Open a western-facing door, leave a candle burning on the windowsill.

Sky by William Stafford

I like it with nothing. Is it
what I was? What I will be?
I look out there by the hour,
so clear, so sure. I could
smile, or frown—still nothing.

Be my father, be my mother,
great sleep of blue; reach
far within me; open doors,
find whatever is hiding; invite it
for many clear days in the sun.

When I turn away I know
you are there. We won’t forget
each other: every look is a promise.
Others can’t tell what you say
when it’s the blue voice, when
you come to the window and look for me.

Your word arches over
the roof all day. I know it
within my bowed head where
the other sky listens.
You will bring me
everything when the time comes.

My photography is featured in the fiction section of Issue 3 of the New Mexico Review.

My photography will be in the Spring 2016 issue of the New Mexico Review.  I didn’t even use my phone to take it!

On seeing.  (i am always coming back to this one.)

Thou art the dark blue bird, and the green parrot with red eyes.  Though hast the lightning as thy child.  -Upanishads

“Of Verdant Themes: Toward one sentence in Proust,” is one of my favorite essays by Beachy-Quick.  But he’s always been a good one for keeping an eye on the trees.

How is it mid-February already?  A nod then, to blogs passed.

Speaking of my love for Brautigan, I just heard recently that a Netflix show called hemlock grove requested permission to use one of my favorites in an episode.  It’s weird when TV catches up to anything actually interesting.  Not that I even know what I’m talking about.  My friend gave me his Netflix password, and it asked me to click which shows I’d liked best, but I’d never seen any.  Then I got bored, and read this, which is way more fun.