Evening

The sun stretches out
to float on the faint ripples
of McCook Lake, South Dakota, as the day
begins to shake out its blanket of heat.
The muggy, muffled songs of birds
give way to the clear, scarlet call of crickets,
and a few fireflies unfold on the tips
of the overgrown lawn.

Two silhouettes, wearing wide-brimmed hats,
putt-putt past, their voices unnaturally loud
over the hypnotic clink of wavelets
tapping the rusting barrels floating our dock.

There is a strong smell of lake water and mud,
high-pitched Doppler of a mosquito settling
down for dinner (my treat), the merest slow
caress of a damp coolness that sniffs
like an old dog and then retreats.

The lake is dimpled with feeding fish,
the sun, deep red, sinks into the cattails--
a window drags a screech up the sash,
and a woman calls dinner, come on, dinner.

Coming Home

Coming Home

Before you were born

we took a good look,

where would you land,

on heaven or earth?

We held up the slides

to see what you might be,

we saw your walk-around

legs, and let you roam free.

Not all of us go to the gravity

lands, not all of us go to the fire

or the sand. We simply don't know

until we see you inside

where in the universe that

you might abide.

The body you receive

when you are ready to birth,

isn't the body you had last on earth.

Not the body you had eons ago,

just the body we give, good to go.

You won't live long,

unfortunately, but you'll

still learn and teach, and

come home free. 

South Dakota Summer

This one came from a poetry workshop led by the poet laureate of Oregon, Lassen Inada. When I read this to the participants, he said, "Wow! Fantastic!"

The buttery white sand is totally smooth,

so soft it almost surprises

when it sticks to my summer brown skin,

tiny blonde hairs

sheltering tiny blonde grains.

The edge of the sandbox is tractor tire

black, and so hot, it leaves a red stain

under the dirty smudges that smear my legs.

In the sand, a green toy tractor

lies on its side, rust streaking the raised

metal warps of the tall back wheels,

the all-blue driver asleep at the wheel.

On the highway side of the house,

the fields, yellow and frothy with wheat,

stretch to a hazy horizon,

a breeze bustles through, musses, moves on,

and returns hissing.

In the deep shade of the boxelder windbreak,

a wide green John Deere lurks, ticking,

waiting the end of the noon hour,

and the overalled man to climb on again.

Falling Down the Well of Joy

I've fallen down the well of joy,

the water is black and crystalline

as tourmaline, pungent 

as West Virginia moonshine.

I crouch, drinking and sniffing

damp stones, caressing the spongy moss

until my knees creak with the sound

of saddle harness.

They keep pulling the bucket up

and letting it back down, I hear

their voices echo in this dripping grotto,

"hello, hello, are you still there?"

Yes I'm still here,

and no, I'm not. I flew out of this well

like a bat leaving a cave at sunset,

I visited the sweet sajuaro flowers,

frilly stickpins with yellow yolks,

sucked and sucked on what only lasts

for a day, maybe two.

The wheel of the night sky

streams overhead, all the parts

I could not see below fanned

like a poker hand. I'm betting the farm,

pushing the chips into the middle of the Milky Way

taking a chance, again.

St. Helens

This was written when Mount St. Helens began to be active again, a few years ago.

In Helens crater,
a slab is building,
four or five feet per day--
one small human at a time.

On one side, cold lava,
frozen ooze, crumbled
and falling off in bits,
while to the other side,
an underground river
vents steam
into the ceramic blue sky.

On the top,
it is smooth as asphalt,
with a few disjointed
cracks and fractures.
It ends abruptly there--
a broken blade
pointing at the sky.

It so resembles a narrow road,
I look for the middle line--
the divider for traffic up
and traffic down.
Maybe it is only a one-way road--
only Helens knows.

Jacks

My mother was good at jacks.
She and my girlfriend had a tournament
on the kitchen floor,
over and under, onesies, twosies,
all the games I never learned to play.
I was 31 and my girlfriend 43.

My mother was good at jacks,
not so good at mothering.

Bucket Drumming

Bucket drumming is a whole bunch of fun! Here are a couple of links so you can see Stormi's Giant Ass Drum Corps:
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=39004557
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.channel&vanity=giantassdrumcorp

And now, for the story:

This morning is cloudy, and our dogs are restless. No matter where I put my dog Rudy, she yips every minute or so, looking up and waiting for something I'm not smart enough to figure out.

Some of the music campers have lunch on the patio, as usual, and as we eat and chat, the thunder begins to creep up. A low growl to the south, faint as a baby's snore. Darkening clouds bloat into stony pillars, and, like an old man recently moved from wheelchair to bed, the thunder grumbles on and on.

After lunch, bucket drumming is scheduled. Using 5-gallon plastic buckets we strap on, and drum sticks with rubber bands wrapped around the ends as beaters, we boom, boom, boom on the bucket head, tap, tap on the edge, whap whap, whap on the sides, boom boom boom, tap tap, whap whap whap, in unison. And then it gets more complicated, as the group splits up and drums different patterns, that blend and weave in and out of the rhythm, all to Stoni's calls and her big grin.

Our drumming seems to draw the thunder. We're standing under a copse of lodgepole pines, the air pressure deepening like a late-night conversation. The lake becomes freckled with widely-spread drops of rain.

Boom boom, and we echo boom boom boom. A cool breeze asks if we're ready for what is coming, and the lightning approaches like a brand new sewing machine needle, there and there, and now here enough that I wonder if we're standing under the tallest trees.

A downpour of rain and hail, lightning and thunder puddles all around us, and pine needles cornrow across the lawn and down to the lake. The lake looks like a stubby beard just growing out, and the thunder rolls ponderous and liquid as the rain.

Later, at bedtime, storms come through again. It bounces off the hills all around, teasing, daring us to track it. The booming is nearly constant, punctuated by the sharp, tinny sound of individual raindrops, rumble, tink tink, rumble, tink tink tink, all around, like we're in the middle of a big pot, the mellow sound of a wooden spoon striking the sides, little bubbles breaking all around.

This goes on so long that at last Rudy sleeps, head up, ears still pointed, but sleeping still, unhearing, her eyes half open.

It reminds me of a time, 11 years old, camping with my parents and their friends on the Missouri River, in my dad's 19' Bell Buoy cabin cruiser. Our day had been spent seining for minnows and fishing, the women sunbathing and chatting, small children splashing and running in the hot sand and the cool silty-green water.

Suddenly, or so it seemed to me, it was nearly dark and we were boating downstream, spot light shining ahead, poking for submerged logs in that wild and untamed river that changed with every big rain and with every spring flood.

I could sense my parents' anxiety, see the spotlight reflecting off the pilings stacked vertically like the walls of army forts, keeping the river from its meandering ways. I could see the whirlpools and eddies, dimpling the greasy water ahead. The night was pitch, needled with our spotlight, seven miles to go.

I laid down on the floor of the boat, on the chilly, damp fiberglass, aft of the cabin. The 70 HP Merc outboard's vibrations thrummed through my body. As our boat hit a submerged log, and the log rumbled the length of the boat with a sound like boxcars crashing, the motor flipped right out of the water, propeller keening away into the air, and I fell soundly asleep.