Abernathy Road Roundabout

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Bronze angel, strong arms
lifting the rainbow,
you stand in the center.

Our fast cars veer around
north, then east
to shop, to school,
to home

but we can’t see
what you see.

Even the truckers,
who lumber down
Abernathy Road
and enter the circle
with heady grapes
ready for press, for barrel,
for thick, green bottle

steer past you.

Our lives are scheduled over-full.
We all have
some place else to go

until unfulfilled,
we return at last
to our bright center,
and in your embracing arms
we rest.

Author’s note:

Image: Mother Nature by Lisa Reinertson, in traffic circle

at Rockville and Abernathy Roads, Suisun Valley, CA.

Variations on a Theme

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But there are so many
To be considered.

The sky, for example,
Is blue today
And white clouds
Are gliding
Over the green continent.

Meanwhile, under the trees
Up Bonny Dune Road
Antennae tremble in the
breeze

While a bird hovers
Momentarily
And dives.

And what about me?
Suppose I’m driving towards Davenport
And I turn too fast
Around the smooth curve
And, seeing the bearded man
Bent over his tripod,
His camera aimed
At the glittering creek

I hear the screaming horn
Of a head-on pickup-truck
And crashing glass
Suddenly fills
My flaring eyes . . . .

. . . . or maybe I swerve in time
And drive on to Davenport,
To the Whaler Inn,
And with my camera
Search for the right shot –
A white church
Against brown hills.

But today I sit alone in the living room
Listening to Mozart , waiting for you

I watch as the cat stretches
By an open window
And stroke her warm fur,
Black silk in silver sunlight
On the dark red carpet.

(1977: re-posted 2017)

On the Feast of St. Catherine

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The poet on the radio
earnestly read her expert lines
about the sad state
of the world,
the failure
of governments,
churches,
parents,
lovers,
the certain decline of
the cosmos,
the end of the world.

Her lines were exquisitely made,
and I listened with admiration and envy
to perfect rhymes, subtle
metaphor, nuanced images
until I felt both elation and
despair.

Then I looked around me,
to the riot of life in
my backyard,
the shrill ecstasy of birds
the shout of the rose.

My children gathered today
for a Sunday feast, full of
laughter and my corny jokes.

Maybe the poet didn’t have a backyard,
could gazed only on bleak
city walls; maybe her lover
walked out (or should have) or
her children never call.

I worry about the poor;
whenever a grimy hand out-
stretched, I see the pierced hand of Christ,
offering gifts, pearls of great price!

(29 April 2012)

Author’s Comments:

I’m feeling guilty about dissing Adrienne Rich here… she really is a marvelous poet. If you’d like to explore her more, try this link: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/adrienne-rich

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Jesus the Homeless, bronze sculpture by Timothy Schmalz
Regis College, the University of Toronto.

“I hear the whisperings of many: “Terror on every side! Denounce! let us denounce him!”
Jeremiah 20:10

Why do you not believe me?

Have I not wept
as, lost and empty
you cried out in the night?

I shed bitter tears
when at last you fell
and did not arise.

I’ll breath my anguish
and fire your still heart
with my passion.

What more can I do for you
than die?

Edge of Extinction

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*Reinertson, Neptune’s Daughter, Ceramic photo credit:Scott McCue* Edge of Extinction Ceramic Sculpture by Lisa Reinertson Pence Gallery Davis, CA April 26 – June 14

When the pelicans fall
my throbbing heart will erupt
into hot rain, cloud-burst
to drown your dirty towns
fill your black lungs
‘till, clean at last,
you will feel
the pelicans’
pain.

(7 March 2013)

Chemin de Jerusalem

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“Openness is not something to be acquired, but a radical gift that has been lost and must be recovered.’ Thomas Merton

I walk

slowly

seemingly without

aim or

direction

gaze down

to flowering tiles

waver

feel lost, yet

see the way

leads always

to the

center.

(22 June 2012)

The Poetry Lesson

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I’ll turn off the classroom lights
and open the windows wide
so you can see.Look deeplyas the sun shatters
our rainy world
into rainbows.Feel how cold wind,
flooding through open doors,
flings to the darkened floor
new poems,

like raindrops
piercing fertile soil –

can you hear it?
the steady whisper
of God?

(26 March 2011)