Ohio Garden Season Matrix

In this season, this month,
the root of my life has grown
in the earth, a pleasure to behold--
once again, facing spring I cling
to dirt like a new vegetable
waiting to be nourished.

The simple mask of God hasn't appeared.
Blind to the sun, I sit
in the garden waiting to be plucked,
believing in rescue, believing in green hope.
Reassured by warm light on my face

spring is right in planting in my brain
a crazy seed that blooms like a blue
morning glory. I continue to call your name--
Darrell Dillon, lost to the flames of some unknown,
your curtain call caught us all off guard.

Now in this chasm of love, I believe
we were kids when we last spoke.
Now the common crab-grass fades,
the journey Westward has ended

and the one God who rests
in the clouds can speak your name.

Dream Job 27:

As evil Albuquerque dwindles
in my rear view mirror I’m reminded
of the dead I’ve left behind, withered
by the blast of sand and heat endemic
to the high desert. Here and there,
among the sharp peaks, the scene repeats
itself in petals strewn to celebrate
the coming of our Lady to the shady

bosque where cottonwood blooms in April.
Alone in the front seat of my imaginary car
I rear back to let the dumb ride pass
into neutral, along the railroad tracks:
what hope I have for the future lies
resolute on the backs of those who’ve stayed behind--
from here in the Ohio wilderness I hear
the rain at night trimming through
the outskirts of Bernalillo county,
I make a pact to observe the loss I feel
every moment I’m away from the steely
shapes that mark my past like branding irons.

Tierra Incontrovertible


In this version, I’m dying
for the bucolic white pueblos viejos
que encontré en mis viajes--
In one town I met a cruel woman

who with her mirrors drowned me
into the other world--black oak
trees bundled on the land, silver
maples dropping red packetsof pollen.

Pero, recientamente, en mis sueños,
después de esa película,
tocaba guitarra como un rock star,
y abrí las piernas de una rubia foyable--

I found myself protected in those chasms
where she was a new pebble hidden
by a thousand years of shoes and drums.
A maker of the first earth of mirrors,
I am there, on the run.

So in bed we killed some poems, one at a time,
distilled old wounds from another life
into small, shrill cries. Everything seemed new,
her small brown back in the yellow haze of sun.