March Selections 1 & 2

Night lingers endless,
Moonlight illuminates
The curtains of my room.
A single bird sings
Startling the silence,
Promising.

--Patrick Mizelle



First Walk With You

Long trees slender lean their distant heads upon the sky
Clouds gather there and breathe above the glade
Where you and I have lain upon the cool pine-leaf
Scattered turf, and look aloft, beyond, above our
Rain-damped place on earth.

Dark birds wheel and wandering turn
Their spiral roads; the morning breeze stirs
Long pines' leaves and sends soft scents below.
Dizzy is this time of waiting, silent turning
Strong hearts beating; Waiting, listening, silent seeing
Long trees pray their morning greeting.

--Amos Clifford

March Selection #3

Before Departure

Now to be gone, as will I go
And gather with the gathered be
Make be the road my rosary
The road be beads and time be string
Small graces southward carry me
Templed stones soft song their sing:

make long a string of slow
past things
make far the string of brief
life's beads

Spired stones praise skywardly
Patient stones be calling me
And morning songs of joyous trees
Sacred hymns of morning trees
Even now they whisper me
Even now, before I leave

they whisper me
they whisper me

--Amos Clifford

March Selection #4

Fissures

That room,
in which a mother bathes an infant,
and nothing happens,
only sunlight falls,
or a kettle steams,
there is the root, the origin, the memory.

By every tiny, hidden, path,
invisibly, in crevices,
through watery fissures numerous as hairs,
our longing seeps and trickles to that core,
in and down,
urgently returning,
oh to return,
return complete, illumined,
child and adult at once,
triumphant, golden . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

as if there were no shadows in the mind.

Polluted water rims the river bank.
Brambles overwhelm a rusted pump.
A tired cop is writing with a pen;
the tow guy scratches, ratches up his chain,
and you and I trade vicious looks again.

Just then a dirty cat peeks out of weeds
and one of us uplifts it and you say - or is it me -
put down that fucking thing and wipe your hands,

and I remember - as I turn around -
the trickling of sweet water
underground -

--Deanna Hopper

March Selection # 5

Western Dragon

If, from your office window,
at the edge of sight,
a small brown bird steps lightly
from a flagpole;

if the redbearded prosecutor demands
that you show a precedent;

if the half-empty glass bursts into song,
and the shivering child throws you one clear-eyed glance;

if, at the sound of the temple bell,
both halves of the cat will serve on the jury,
and yet no verdict is reached;

if the dragon that rises, wet and new,
from the urban dawn, is pink and gold;

if the dragon that rises, haggard and hoary,
from the smoky dusk, is clothed in somber joy;

Then peace, that drunken mariachi band,
balancing a pitcher of sangria,
will screech and stagger its way down your street,
gallantly lifting horns to the teen
walking with her grandfather

appearing in your sideview mirror
as maybe only a couple of vatos in baggies

and dwindling at last
to the leaves and discarded wrappers
that rest against
the wheel of your car.

Your morning begins.
You turn the key, head west.
Power flows in every direction.

- - Deanna Hopper