Why again news, no more news
of divorce. I hadn’t heard of these two,
hadn’t dreamed they’d divorce.
A tree sways in the wind, but doesn’t
do as trees normally do, it cracks
like a painting
into pieces.
Why was there no woman of tears
and soft hands to go to this tree,
and massage it before it died?
Sometimes prayers you have to wrestle them loose
for they bear the beloved
and you don’t want to bear
the beloved away
When you have children your heart
leaves the safety of the rib cage.
The bones open up and the thing is out there
exposed
to torrents of bruises and dyes.
If it should flow through us like water
(it does),
wetting every cell as it goes,
why not ride this living means to be boundless,
and say goodbye to our hard little pool?
How in heaven the old appears first
for the sake of recognition –
your gaunt frame and thinning hair,
the soft blue veins on the back of your hand.
We’ll need to be sure.
We’ll have to hear the little cough in your throat first,
before we’ll know we’re there.
Jerry Brown meets Linda Rondstadt when he’s still in the Jesuit seminary, see. Jerry wants to drop out, but Linda is overwhelmed. She writes “Different Drum” and breaks his heart. Jerry recovers and eventually becomes Pope. Linda realizes (too late) he was the great love of her life. She sings “Long, Long Time” and pines (really pines).
My love has held nothing in place –
and has itself, some of it, gone
to where love and time decompose
in a field of stars and glass.
As I dress she asks,
Another day at the
wood-chopping farm?
And yes, it does begin
in a kind of wood
where trees pose a problem,
physically or metaphorically,
and you wouldn’t want one
landing wrong in either case.
My chopping, of course,
being but a form of bewilderment,
won’t bring one down, but
you’re right to note, dear,
my attire would well serve
the man who could.
Going overboard again,
overdramatizing,
forgetting there are limits
to what people can take,
how they don’t want to hear it,
not in a restaurant
or ever,
all the fool convictions, thinking
she can fix things,
hoping again, when all we want
is to be left alone
Love casts out fear
Hence I found myself
three trees from the big house
working my way back
one black trunk at a time
Utrecht Journal 