Sonnet #29

Last night I heard the toads again, their song
Like tiny bells of darkness, little birds
That lost their wings but did no wrong
They clamber out to sing one true word

All feathers lost, all flight abandoned
Such tiny souls, such hopeful ones
Creep where no one sees the saddened
The moonlight's blind reflecting sun

The damp, the mud, the hop that falters
Never flying higher than safe landings
All my little ones, live here, take shelter
Where the water's deep enough for standing

The tininess of beauty, crawling from the muck
The little, lonely tadpoles dreaming luck

Sonnet #28

Butterflies know the scent of one species
Pipevine Swallowtail seeks the Dutchman's Pipe
Bassooning bloom and heart-shaped leaves
That scraggling, scrambling, climb to sky
To love is more than just another's touch
It's also where the eggs will stick and grow
There is no love without a world too much
for eyes and hands and feet to touch and know
Why do we stand exactly where we stand?
Why do we choose a secret place for kissing?
It takes a village to raise a child, woman and man
are not enough. It takes a sense of  destiny
a scene, a story, vistas. Butterflies know love
Includes a vine, flowers, sunlight to move

Sonnet #27

However much we love to talk of history

It is a mythical irrelevance to birds and trees

What memory in wood rings tell the story

Of growth or not, and birdsongs' creed

Is not to build the blocks of time but stand

and be still on a moving branch, blustering

Where none may know their silent end

And before it comes, all songs mustering

All flowers, all blooms, all seeds hurled to ground

What use history when it can not tell the tale

Of where the eels go up the river, down

Why the salmon remember, leap and fail

When our cameras turns to sky and see the starlight

A trillion suns, all glittering down upon our fights

Sonnet #26

We speak of death in the bones of a man

But I think of death as a fungal thing

I know my age in my joints in the morning

I feel it in my back, the rot and ruin

The soil of me feels death bloom

Tendril pathways snaking mycorrhizal

Stretch and drink water, read the Bible

In the crevices of bones the creaking swoon

Lie down in the field and look to the cloud

My hair will stretch and fall into the earth

I carry the colony, I am their shroud

They are my body I carry them forth

And when they are hungry they crowd

Into my gaps to transform my rebirth

Sonnet #25

So, who fertilizes forests? Forests.

The leaves fall, rot - short-lived flowers bloom

make seed and die and creatures live entombed

with all they leave behind. Trees fall to rest.

The death becomes the home for life

Who fertilizes forests? No one

Comes with tractor parts, no one

making rows, pulling weeds, killing  mice

It all becomes the forest with no one's  hand

No one plucks the flowers, no one pulls the weeds

No one bothers raking up the mass of fallen leaves

No one has such a beautiful master plan

Who mows the grass? Who weeds this place?

No one leaves more beauty than another can replace

Sonnet #24

Come out, come out, and stand with me in twilight
Look to the south and to the east and to the storm
Witness the way the setting sun paints delights
With a dirty, heatblast sky all humid warm
The stillness of the air we feel, the weight
Everything waits and braces, then like banshees
The vanguard wind whoosh harsh, berates
The dry dust slaps the face, the leaves of trees
This is the wind of change to anger and pain
Stand with me as long as you can stand here
Where the trees flicker and the clouds shout rain
The crack pop and fizzle and electric groans
Come out and stand with me, in the sunset and storms

Sonnet #23

Upon the tile, in dust, it caught my eye
I held the tiny mace aloft, and thought no worse
Then I knew a rodent's paw mold and dry
I flinched and felt what did not strike me first
A dessicated vegetable, a forlorn branch
Another mystery of homes with dogs and cats
But, no, a rodent's paw, no wishes grant
Except the mysteries: a mouse? a rat?
How long it had been there I do not know
It was just another muddy twig upon the floor
Where's the rest of the creature? The dog would know
This is horror, this fear, I feel at gore:
I can't stop thinking is a mouse inside a wall
It's wiggling tail, lost limb, a blood trail crawl

Sonnet #22

Digging up the weeds below the water spout I found

A single relic of a former gardener's memories

A piece of trash, to me, because the plant was drowned

A metal sign of chocolate mint that long ago dies

Everything will die, and when they do, the signs

We keep will be the Anthropocene bones

Metal, plastic, stone, and etched with names

Of planted, died, dissolved into the stones

A memory of chocolate mint, lettering stained

With memories of water - rust - twisted up, interred

The bent and ruined sign was barely legible

Poor gardeners call their signage cemetery markers

I prefer to think of them as Ozymandian heads

Once there was a garden here, a gardener, flower beds

Sonnet #21

A Tribe is just another word for story
These metaphors and allegories wrap
Around a common sense of place and glory
We pick the signs and boundaries that strap
The histories, become the players' rosters
We follow how the story says to map
We talk the way our heroes speak to monsters
We dream in terms defined by what we think
Of what is possible for players on this team
We never lose the uniforms, we drink the drinks
We laugh and cheer and dance with what it seems
Our story's just another word for finding glory
A tribe is just another word for finding glory

Sonnet #20

If life is just a dream and we the dreamers
Then butterflies are souls and frogs are bards
And any moment we could find these sleepers
Transformed into a chorus for a God

If life is just a breath and we the breathers
Then nothing but the breath will last of us
A spirit wind, an energy, a whisper sliver
Of all we pushed and changed against all cusps

If life is just a night awaiting morning
Then find me sleeping late and lost to dreams
I prefer to be dancing than mourning
The moonlight's loss to daylight's scorching beams.

If matter dictates matter, and all directions
Then I will be unimpressed with dull creation.

Sonnet #19

Everybody wants to change the world
I'm just happy if I change a single day
For someone else, who feels the fray
Where the black sirens burn a knurl
A single smile is better than a thousand
Raucous cheers, shouting single names
I'd prefer to be no one, Here's the game,
Quietly, bring peace to just one man
Quietly, a hand over hand, a lift, a chair
A stoplight politeness, a tree fresh fig
An unexpected gift in the mail, a glare
When a child is doing wrong, a wig
Allowed to be real hair, Just be there
When the phone rings. That's the jig.

Sonnet #18

When I think of Texas, all I see are highways
Interchanges, bridges from the sky from vein to vein
to wide lanes, six, eight or even twelve lanes
Cars and trucks brimming with empty space
So much space for each person in their car
Alone. Drive-through corporations pawn shops
Gas stations in neon colors, strip malls, rest stops
Texas is a highway, don't stop, drive far
People don't think anything of crossing town a day
Or driving over cities to get a specific dinner
The parking lots are vast and hot, the causeway
vast and hot, the sun like a city skinner
The air so vast and hot, the junk we throw away
The blowing trash; the deer and bird trails thinner

Sonnet #17

And this is how to make a loaf of bread
Begin with patience, time, an oven, flour
Water, salt, and yeast. A sturdy bowl, to knead
Put everything together bit by bit, hour by hour
Begin with just a little flour, water yeast, to rise
They call this Biga, feed it when it's foamed
Add a little bit of everything until you find
The dough is rich and thick and grown
It should feel like clay that won't let go.
Let it rest. Read a book. Write a poem.
Punch it down, the hot oven, the stone
Write another poem, leave the oven alone
When it's done, it will sound hollow with a tap
Like a cabinet sounds, wait half an hour to unwrap

Sonnet #16

I never talk about the work; I do it
Make the work, make the art, hold it tight
Inside my head so that I have no outlet
but to make the work; I do it

I do not draw the plans; I plant them
I see where each might go in light and shade
I take my time to find where flowers made
The plans are in the soil; I plant them

The king of all the sparrows knows far better
What to give the birds for meat and drink
The mountains have no gardener, but are sweeter
And more beautiful than anything we make

Trust the glaciers; trust the slowly rolling ice
Trust the geologic destiny and tides