Singing From A Bush

Singing from a bush...

A way off where Gordon Creek
.. enters Grande Ronde River
... is a place called White Horse Cafe,
surely a noteworthy historical site.

Certainly worthy of note,
.. for the northern shrike sings there,
... celebrating the slightest bit of sun
and guarding his caches.

Not even a promise of spring,
.. simply celebrating the sun
... and a winter's plenty
of mice and sparrows and space.

Perhaps, I too should sing
.. from the top of a thorny bush,
... sing of fresh mice and the day,
burbling and trilling with abandon.

.. --r.anderson

Thinking About Bill Stafford's "Earth Dweller" (Lostine River Meadows)

Thinking About Bill Stafford's Earth Dweller
(Lostine River Meadows)

"it was all the clods at once become precious"

let the symbols crash, let the cymbals stand in
for every ordinary experience ever overlooked
the road bends and stomps across the river
and a percussion orchestra of ice slaps against
the piers. this may not be the right place, but
then again, there may not be one, until your own
heart settles contented in the brush, the shed,
the barn, the shack. then in every little hole
imagine a metropolis - comings and goings,
dining in and out, trafficking in roots and bugs,
and all the way made smooth night and day
and day and night by gopher policemen in the dark.

See Earth Dweller at http://www.williamstafford.org/spoems/pages/earthdweller.html

Wallowa River Night Music

Wallow River night music
(concerto grosso)

there is no program but.................the bells in the wind
............the drum strike of ice...........crashing to the ground
............the moan the stars make .........watching
............each little sorrow pound ................the rest:
............and over there, a flash of might be .....goes off
unthundered .................unseen......................unknown.


KB

Wallowa River: Midnight

Wallowa River: Midnight

building pyramids in the fireplace
rocking the barge in conversation
just there in a flurry of snowflakes
a dozen deer wait to cross, oh so
politely (a notable moment) - it is
once in a blue moon at the ice-end
of Wallowa Valley, and no matter
the time-era-epoch, these tiny
local epics go mostly unmemorialized

KB

Responses: Nurturing the Beast Within... and More (Responses to Carl Sandburg, All Part of the Party)

Nurturing the beast within . . .

There is a beast in me... maybe even several,

...that bark and woof, hoot and howl,

.....wail and often keep me awake nights.

Perhaps it's all those genes

...I shared with my progeny,

.....vestiges of complex phylogeny.

Sometimes I live with dread

...of the iconic songs stuck in my head

....."The cat is dead. We put him in a box..."

Then we have a blue moon night

...and it seems I'm not alone,

......the back alleys are filled with howling.

There seems little hope of denying

...the only recourse is to embrace

.....the beast that whines... deep within.

--r.anderson

first beastalette

under the microscope
a radiant animalcule
peerless identical descendant
of the first one ever introduced
to van Leeuwenhoek -
glowing, docking in the dark
shy (hiding her shiny buttons
from most everyone): pal
of the part that beats the loudest
shhh don’t tell anyone
until you do – oh now
you've done it and everyone knows -
that’s where the secrets live

KB

Hurricane Creek Haiku

milky turquoise waves

frozen in winter’s white fist

silent Hurricane

Mariah Blackhorse, Enterprise, OR

Zumwalt Spring

Zumwalt spring

it takes about 50 years
they say
to get used to the fact
that spring doesn't come
by the calendar

just as unpredicted
three inches of new snow
the ponies, half-shed-out
things refusing to poke aboveground
ranch truck in the ditch

stock dogs panting on the haybales
boss on the cell phone
calling for the 4x4
the neighbors laughing
behind those straight faces

Wallowa telephone poles singing
Joe dumped it again
"Yeah, you'd think he'd know by now
ain't spring in the Wallowas
til fall."

KB