Panning for Staurolites

We hunted for Fairy rocks on the Mississippi river bank
today. Water over Blanchard Dam crashed upriver,
cicadas droned in their torpor of late day heat.
My cheeks rosied-up without my straw hat,
and despite our modest success, my son
sat on a jutting rock, marked by indifference.

When a boy nears his 15^th year, indifference
might as well be capitalized. His father, but a bank
and chauffeur, his mother, even less, a son’s
embarrassment. But we paddle forth on this adolescent river
of hormones and hope for the best. Hang on to your hat,
chuckles Grandpa, that boy’s burning heat.

When Grandpa was 15, WWII heated
the air. His parents doffed their different-
sounding German accents, wore their hats
low. At night, Mutti would pull shades, bank
the fire, make the sign of the cross while the river
took her eldest son away to the coast. Her son

vowed to aim low in case the enemy was the son
of her sister still in Berlin. Then lightning heats
the air and Grandpa sighs remembering the river
that took his brother away returned an indifferent
shell of a man who could only put money in the bank,
no treasure in his heart, who kept his hat

on his head when Old Glory waved. His hat
on his head, whispered Mutti, tears for her lost son
who came home from Paris like a 1930’s banker’s
book, closed and beaten, an indifferent
man. Yellow chin of a Blanding’s turtle flashes in the river

next to the rock where my son sits, Upriver,
a cacophony of gulls call; one swoops the hat
off an old man’s head. Hey, he cries, but it is indifferent
to our protestations, all a superfluous chatter, assonance
without meaning. Our feet blue, we seek the heat
of our dry socks and shoes lying on the bank.

Pascal insisted that a river made no difference
On either side of the bank, a man still wears a hat
And a son still grows up to pack heat in wartime

Canis Lupus

Mimi’s waiting patiently for a blood-red
moon, an eclipse that starts past
midnight, that starts with a wolf’s
muzzle pointed skyward, its lips
making a howling lament, a rumbling
moan until it’s joined by a rough pack

Fellow canines, sister bitch, form a pack
friendly to none but the other, their red
focused eyes wait until a train rumbles
far down cold, steel tracks, past
farmhouses where prayers on lips
form, children breathing like a pack of wolves

Tangled like a litter of whelps-to-wolves
Tussling for their place in the pack
Tough and snarling, their bristled hair, lips
turned back in a sneer, yet their red
tender hearts bleed of memories past
today and tomorrow with the past rumble

By 1926, the last wolves were rumbled
back to their graves in Yellowstone, No Wolves
became the mantra, this shameful past
beholden to government control. Yet a pack
beneath the radar, sheltered on a red
bed of secrets, grew in Minnesota, on the lip

of Lake Superior—those wolves’ curled lips,
open teeth, and crouched haunches, rumble
outside where they sleep, no predators with red
objectives will attack them. The alpha wolf,
only betrayed by man, runs in tight packs
or strikes out solo in search of a mate. In the past,

no wailing wolf could be found. “That’s in the past,”
newspapers claimed, but Mimi still believed, her lips
not opening, not even mouthing the truth. A wolf’s pack
need not fear, Mimi’s tongue will not wag, nor words rumble
nilly-willy. Mimi sets salt-licks for the deer, knowing a wolf
nearby will soon down one for its dinner, under the moon, blood-red.

Wolf-packs survive despite past histories of scourge
Mimi, so unlike Little Red Cap, licks her own lips
As thunder rumbles and her wolves wake for the night

What Happens on Sycamore Street

She waits in a house at 743 Sycamore Street
where the sun shines so brightly on the sidewalk
it looks iridescent and pink morning glories bloom
all day long in shadows, where a cat prowls silently
between houses, terrifying song birds, and at last
she admits she is waiting to die.

“My sweet potatoes, planted this spring, didn’t die
even though we suffered drought, but up the street
Mrs. Hoover’s fall-bearing raspberries didn’t last
the summer,” she says as she looks down the walk.
What she doesn’t say, what remains silent,
is how she wonders about her own fading bloom.

Her groom holds her hand, a mottled bloom
on his cheeks. “Nineteen years and…” but his voice dies
away as he thinks ‘til death us do part silently.
The cat chases a squirrel across the street
just as a Honda drives by. Squeals, then driver walks
around the front of his car, looking at the last

chase Fresko will ever enjoy. With effort, at last
he leans over and picks up the body, lays it in blooming
asters growing in the boulevard, wipes his hands on the sidewalk
as if the roughness will cleanse his palms. His is a die-
hard attitude, no need to find its owners; cat was in the street,
what can they expect. In 743 Sycamore, they watch silently.

“Do you think,” she asks, breaking the silence,
“that our neighbors will come to the funeral, my last
big show,” she adds with a tepid smile. “I’ll throw a street
party,” he says, “but I am a madcap, my love, my blooming
rose. Let’s us a party today, tonight before evening dies!”
Outside a small girl cries, kneeling on the concrete sidewalk

skinning her bare knees. Her father lifts her up and walks
down the road, crossing Sycamore, while mother silently
trails behind holding a blanketed ball of cat, now dead.
“Wrap me in a shroud like that cat when I die,”
she claps a hand on her mouth, shocked by her last
comment. He wraps his arms around her, sniffs the bloom
of her hair, freshly washed. “Tonight, babe, we party in the street.”

All things living will die, but how long we walk
on this Earth, how many streets we silently
traverse until our last is a bloom that cannot open until it drops.

The Gift of Waiting

We are waiting for the end of advent,
but are we expecting the Christ child?
Or are our thoughts on ribbons and gifts
circling the tree like an electric train?
Christ is with us now, and yet we wait;
we hold our breath in anticipation.

Half the pleasure, you know, is anticipation.
The third candle, lit on the wreath of advent
burns joy—we are closer than half way—but wait!
Just wait a little longer. It is hard to be a child
waiting, not knowing, but the waiting trains
us to bide our time, hold still for the Gift.

We tell our children about the donkey carrying a gift,
wrapped in Mary’s womb. We smile at their anticipation,
watching them fidget, tiptoe, and whisper. Their train
of thought headed in one direction: the eve of Advent.
A ceramic nativity scene high on the mantle, a child
can only look, not touch. Like a spinster, we make them wait

for Christmas Eve, for the Bible lesson read aloud. Wait,
wait, wait. When all they want is to tear open the gifts
and shout, “Look what I got!” I was a once a child,
I remember. After the wrappings are undone, anticipation
fades. But here is another mystery, Advent
is not over. Epiphany comes like the twelve-fifteen train

down the tracks. We count down to twelve: the train
the days, the leaping lords. We watch and wait
for Epiphany, the bookend of a month-long advent.
Three Kings’ Day marks the twelfth night, marks with gifts,
the climax of Christmas. The waiting, the anticipation,
the longing are over. Now we celebrate the birth of our Christ-child

Somehow, compressed though it is, we watch this Jesus-child
grow up to be a miracle-man who calls his disciples and trains
them to wait. To wait and to watch with holy anticipation,
while he washes feet and feeds the hordes that also wait
for the time when the three wise men’s gifts
will be used to anoint and prepare the body of the King of Advent.

This anticipation we feel, like a child, eager and open,
leads us through the days of Advent and trains our hearts
to wait for the kismet of Jesus as he becomes our greatest gift.

Buried on the Lone Prairie

Mrs. Cranberry dug a trench in the flower bed
just to the left of a row of tulip bulbs.
Her son Ensen knelt down in the upturned dirt,
his arms cradling a silent bundle.
Cotton-Candy's mews had long since died,
her body stiffened like an icicle.

"This past winter," he said, "an icicle
fell point down in this very spot, this snow bed
that'll now hold my Cotton-Candy. She's died
now, Ma, she's really gone?" Her little bulb
of life is passed, Ma agreed, as she bundled
her thoughts together. Earthen smell of dirt

rose to her nose, a test, she thought of the scented dirt
harrowed by Mr. Cranberry last spring, after all icicles
had melted and they'd laid their bonny lass, bundled
in a tattered quilt, pulled from her straw bed,
in the yellowed prairie land. No daffodill bulbs
had been planted then, but now, where she'd died,

they circled her grave, waving as if nothing could ever die
again. Why did she die? Ma's tears fell in the dirt
making splotches of mud, like minature dirt bulbs
into which Ensen laid Cotton-Candy, stiff and cold as an icicle
"Ma?" Mrs. Cranberry looked up, her heart a bed
of cut glass, "Yes, Ensen?" "Could I make a bundle

of money by going around and praying for the bundles
of children that died last winter? You know, died
from the fever?" His mother stepped back into the bed
of flowers, shocked. But his face showed no malevolent dirt
despite that he'd stabbed her through the heart with an icicle
of words. "No, child, prayers are free," she whispered, as if a bulb

of emotion were stuck in her throat. "Instead, take these bulbs,
dig them up, and sell them for a dime a bundle."
He saw the tears on her face, a pendent spear, an icicle
of sadness, sliced down her cheek. Thoughts of his cat died
as he jury-rigged a basket of bulbs to sell with still-clinging dirt
on their opaque skins. Ma laid Cotton-Candy in her last bed.

Sunshine on the bitter cold creates icicles that drip into bulbs
below where the bearded iris, in its bed, unbundles its arms,
casts off the dead leaves and emerges like a fluted horn from the dirt.

Earthly Beliefs

There's a few things about me that are beautiful,
but you don't know them. First, I live on this Earth
as a human being, but before I lived here, my friends,
I was an angel. Maybe I ended up here because of lust.
Lusting to eat Braeburns or to hold small, furry animals.
I'm not sure, but lust is powerful. Look it up at the library.

The name of the street where I live is Library
Lane. Down the block, on mornings replete with beautiful
sunshine, I walk to that reverential place, spying animals
along the way. Believe me. Look it up on Google Earth
if you are too incredulous. Some people actually lust
after the name of my street, but not my friends.

Second, I find that I am lonely for friends.
Again, that might be hard to believe and no library
book will confirm it, but I am lonely. I lust
for deeper friendships with souls that are beautiful.
When looking for friends, this small world becomes a giant earth,
which no ship can traverse. And friendless, we act like animals.

The irony is, I am the cruelest of all animals.
So if you can, please send me a legion of friends.
Third, although I am a Christian, I love this Earth;
its splendid woven sky and manufactured libraries
and synogogues, all of it is exquisite. All is beautiful.
Yes, I know. Love not the world for the world is lust,

but if so, then I dive into the glories of earthen lust
as the pious dive into earthen vessels. God made animals
the same as me. Why spurn the handwork, the beauty
that is the Lord's? Instead we ought celebrate, friends,
how perfect Life is. Pour out of your churches, your libraries,
your Starbucks and sing praises of our planet Earth.

Fourth, I believe there is no other Earth
like this one, but that there is drudgery and lust
and salvation in abundant measure. In the Library
of the Universe, I believe we can verify even animals'
souls. Don't be fooled by others, not even your friends
who decry notions like mine. Know that you are beautiful.

It is written in God's library that this very Earth
contains redeemable life, both beautiful and lustful,
both animal and human. Read it in the Book, dear friends.

Crack Baby

Larry's lips form a circle as he blows
a smoke ring into Keleigh's pasty grey
face. Coughing, she opens the window a crack
to breath in the frosty air. It is winter
although no snow has yet fallen.
Larry's bright eyes dance with a song

playing on the radio. "What the name of that song?"
he says. Kel shrugs, "Give me a puff; quit blowing
dry air at me and give." Her resolve has fallen,
like her grades and her hopes, into a grey
pulp of ashes. She looks out the window into the wintry
sky. She feels as if her heart will crack

like a pumpkin after Halloween, crack
like her voice when she sings a song
that's too high, crack like the first ice in winter
when she steps gingerly on its glass. Blown,
Keleigh has blown her chances. When she's grey-
haired and wrinkled, she'll look back on this fallen

day and ache like a mother bird whose chick has fallen
out of the nest, too young to fly. The shell cracked
but the wings still folded. Its only hope is its grey
plumage to cammoflage it in the dirt. No song
sings from bird's beak or woman's heart. No blowing
winds of hope lift either spirit. It is winter.

Larry hands her the pipe, "Here's your woolie, you winter-
strawberry." Keleigh cradles the pipe, looks at her weightless, fallen
man. Abruptly she wants neither the screw nor the crack. "Blow
it yourself; I don't want your Love," she says with a voice that cracks.
"Bitch," he breathes and turns up the radio. Wainwright sings a song
while strumming his guitar, in his nasal twang, "When it's grey

in L.A., I sure like it that way..." "Effing country, all gloom and grey
music, that sh..." Larry starts, but looks at Kel glowing in winter
white shimmer, winter white glory. Humming a new song.
"What the hell...", but his voice whiskers away, falls
into silence, like snowflakes at night. He cracks
his pipe on the counter, sneers, then takes one more blow.

Each bird sings its own song, flies on its own grey wings.
Battered by the blows of wind and the bitter breath of winter,
the timid become lost. Fallen feathers sift between the cracks.