The Poetry Marathon

early morning

clouds clearing

fever break

Long ago I was gifted a large

green dragon candle

with glowing red eyes.

In resting green dragon pose

it watches everything that goes on

We have reached an accommodation

where I don’t light the candle and

the dragon does not breathe fire

in my presence.

It does not talk or make noises

but I can sense disapproval

with a mere tilt of its head.

Once after I had to cleaned up

the ash that gathered

on the table and the carpet

the dragon winked.

How are we to

understand the workings of

the world when we cannot

comprehend how we

operate in the spaces

where humans talk to each other?

This life this journey

through time is full of

many unexpected unsettling

happenings that jolt us

from the humdrum to

the mere moment of being.

When I go into the wild

I am not a hunter of elk

or a wearer of a camo jacket

Besides throwing my boots in the trunk,

I pack my all purpose ruck sack with

a thermos of beet juice

sticks of cinnamon gum

savory sticks of veggie jerky

a peanut banana sandwich with hot sauce

a flashlight with an extra lightbulb

binoculars.

In case, the blackberries are plentiful

I will carry a small bucket

Hoping to return to our carport

in one piece I leave the porch light on

and pray the wildness of life

sticks to me this time.

Recently I read another

book about dystopia

not in the future

but now

Trying to wrap

my brain around

book bannings

book burnings

bounty hunters

climate deniers

forced birthing

illegal ideas

illegal treatments

invented histories

slow moving putsch

versions of fugitive slave laws

voting restrictions

I will stop

reading dystopia novels

as our nonfiction world

is dystopian enough

The reality is

something I hear

all of the time

regarding the idea of truth

In arguing a concept

the reality is

becomes the final

undeniable statement

But do we really

know  what

the reality is

and if is true

Given how we live our lives

just shows we don’t know

anything about what

the reality is.

I watch youtube videos

of animals as

prayers of hope and

possibility

We seem lost

in our self-absorbtion

and yet

yearn to connect

with the world of living beings

magpie dog

cat tiger

dog turkey

elephants lion

orangutang dog

cat dog

We need to challenge

our assumptions

of the world

An old friend

a gardener

a poet

a photographer

a buddhist

who once shared

a ramshackle house with bees

has documented

hundreds of different

kinds of apples in the

New Zealand countryside

from abandoned trees

growing along highways

in farrow fields

away from human care.

The world will go on without us

The railroad trestle over the creek

is finally coming down

after being abandoned decades ago

It leads nowhere

with a cutoff front and back

Like some behemoth in its death throes

it moans

it creaks

it undulates

it leans

The years have

shifted its spine of metal and wood

into an unsteady unstable and shifting scoliosis

There will be no formal burial

or reconstruction in a museum

after it has been removed

piece by piece

Like all human creations

it was not made to last

forever

There have always been difficult times in

which humans must find a way to navigate the

choppy waters of despair while immersed in the middle

of some natural or human made disaster of

such enormity that one cannot hear beyond the noise

of hopelessness and gloom and

must confront the possibility of extinction while the turmoil

churns out few reasons to think the survival of I

is possible and which will carry

much weight amidst the deafening silence