Living

I flew into Denver April.
Rock salt and sand peppered the asphalt
reflecting myself on a downtown street
where I’ d paused on my route to smell lilacs.
The wanton winds chortled wickedly
over remnant snows in gray clumps of doom
and my heart soared gladly at winter’ s death
but an hour later I had whiskey breath
at a dead end bar full of Indians.
A Winnebago woman waltzed with me
and told me how handsome I truly was
so I bought her drinks and felt her hips
and somewhere between the grinds

I

they find what looks like
a grave
what looks like a grave
a grave and they
dig it up
they find a grave
it looks like
a grave
and they dig
it up
they dig it up the grave
it looks like they
dig it up and
they dig it up and
it looks like
a grave and
they
dig it up

Each grief has its unique side.
Choose the one that appeals to you.
Go gently.
Your body needs energy to repair the amputation.
Humor phantom pain.

Your brain cells are soaked with salt;
connections fail unexpectedly and often.
Ask for help.
Accept help.

Read your grief like the daily newspaper:
headlines may have information you need.
Scream. Drop-kick the garbage can across the street.

The stars grow lemon
in the field, spread
like tea leaves in
a cup; red-wing
blackbirds fold themselves
into the fence,
corn dreamers.

The sky undulating
with clouds returns
gold-throated arpeggios
to the one walking
at sunrise, sunfall.

Light as the air
I sit on my
cottage steps;
a tom cat come
home to die for
the day.

Filled with old lovers, in the clutch of the chair,
you are a bloom of uncombed hair.

With a collection of roses, bowls of mashed petals,
I make a clear cup of sky.
Fold away clouds. Roll up blankets of blue.
I am a body of empty husks.
Indian corn is in your hair, the tassels,
the pollen, fertility.

Indelible ink is tattooing our lungs.
We speak smoke.
We exchange our lunacy for reverence.
Respect tornados.
Windy Woman. Four Winds.

We have extended the edge of expectation
by merely living.

I.
I like to travel to L. A. by myself
My trips to the crowded smoggy polluted by brown
indigenous and immigrant haze are healing.
I travel from one pollution to another.
Being urban I return to where I came from
My mother
survives in L. A.
Now for over forty years.

I drive to L. A. in the darkness of the day
on the road before CHP
one with the dark
driving my black truck
invisible on my journey home.

I.
The empty of stomach
manifests silence
a stillness
that levels
coffee in a cup
and in a respectful manner
allows steam to penetrate
the surface.
Reversal of action
has created my sandstone canyon
rooted cedar and sage at my feet.
This movement is where
a tranquility stems.

Bending, I bow my head
and lay my hands upon
her hair, combing, and think
how women do this for
each other. My daughter’ s hair
curls against the comb,
wet and fragrant — orange
parings. Her face, downcast,
is quiet for one so young.

I take her place. Beneath
my mother’ s hands I feel
the braids drawn up tight
as piano wires and singing,
vinegar-rinsed. Sitting
before the oven I hear
the orange coils tick
the early hour before school.

I am standing outside
in Minnesota
ghost wind recalling
names in winter mist

The road smells
of dogs two days dead

White photographers talk in
the house of mainstream
media

I can’ t articulate
the agony of Eagle Singer’ s
children to them.