Two Poems

 

From Here, There

Latitude 41.115791, Longitude -112.4768287, Elevation 1270 m

 

This is the salty basin seen from space,

what you know of from a work

of art – those rocks arranged,

that land

 

displaced

 

all for the spiral, that whorl

of the hurricane, the crozier

or fiddlehead mute on the forest floor.

That which can be viewed, can be

walked upon so much more now

that this vanishing

 

is taking place.

This desiccation,

retraction, like that shy plant that curls

inward when touched.

The leaves there

 

and then not.

 

Talk of houses and the pasture, water

needed for the corn

and the alfalfa give us cause.

Not just because, that response

you tried to use as a girl

and were told, No, because

is a conjunction and nothing more.

 

If you take from here, this

there, will feel it: ripples

on the pond from the stone you flung.

 

Salt on the skin after running.

 

Salt on the wrist behind the band shell,

when he claimed everyone,

everyone must drink tequila once.

You tossed the bright green limes

into the bright green grass.

 

Salt rimming the shore,

white as snow, snow

of that season that goes

the way of and returns.

 

• • •

 

Where Once a Field and a House, Now

Latitude 67.8783435 Longitude 44.1529957 Elevation -32768 m

 

Silt and seaweed scraped clean

away and the waves move more so,

move in their unencumbered way.

 

So, where once the pasture, now a dune

to climb and a door left ajar

for the sandy hillock.

 

From the second floor, a desert

view and sea beyond. Dreams of

camels plodding one and one and one.

 

In a bowl, berries

like apples. Their tang

and amber hue.

 

All the shoes

with shore gathering. That soft tread

some love in spite of.

 

For: the asphalt

is unyielding, and, here, calm

and the buried skull.