the first few fires

The first few fires of autumn laid by me
Here in this stove aren't much; I acknowledge
Even the hummingbird's still caressing blooms, so I

Feeling only a brief dawn chill, build accordingly. 
In thickets of summer I range about,
Ratcheting my long-handled pruner among stout sticks,
Stealing from oak and ash, letting in a little light.
These I pile in the long room where that stove squats.

Fueling it with paper and a stack of twigs, admiring
Even the least hints of gold and vermillion therein,
We sit back, warm enough for one dark cup of tea.

For awhile; then day overtakes us, ready
In sweater and chore coat to see to hens;
Really, we shuck those soon enough, sweat on our
Ears and eyelids, summer reborn briefly in our knees.
So; until the ground grows cold that will hold our graves.

nothing can stand still

Nothing can stand still. If it were to do so
absolutely, I could not see it; if I
were to cease scanning, I could not then see;

therefore change is all. These were my thoughts
as I walked a dog, watching my year run down.
Apples were falling; I chose one to eat.

Hips blushed fiercely; I stuffed my pockets full.
Ash and maple and willow turned and turned.
Restless mice and voles risked their all

for seeds. We reached the river; a trout rose, an
osprey plunged; they met and flew as one.
An osprey will turn a trout head first in flight,

you know -- for improved aerodynamics. I
disbelieve it; surely the bird is kind.
It turns the trout to show it what's to come.

she likes red

She likes red in September: viney maple, poison oak;
Her plum trees dress well in it. Where she lives, all
Else goes brown. Except the dog roses

Leavening hedges with their hips. She stuffs these
In her pockets on every walk, then does research,
Kindling a ken of potions, liqueurs, oils.
Easily, drying comes to mind; to prep for that
She'll split each pod and rake away hard seeds,

Removing them to her freezer to stratify;
Else they might not emerge come spring. She
Digs out also myriad tiny hairs,

Irritants if retained. It's a slow business,
Not for the impatient, which well describes her;

She knows of this but means to tough it out.
Each hip's a silent mantra: she'll
Push, pull, twist, scrape, sort, and set aside
The emptied husks for drying or infusing.
Eventually the pile is done, just as light fades.
My eyes, she tells herself, are getting on,
But this I can still do. I'll make rose tea;
Evening will fill my cup of mindfulness.
Really, there's nothing more than what there is.

just-enough

The ubiquity of Queen-Anne's lace annoys her;
it's not the plant's not doing its job; her soil
is loosened and enriched; in time of human

hunger, roots, young leaves and even umbels
would have table use. But there is so much
of it; her chickens dislike the stuff, especially

in its second year, allowing their yard and moat
to fill with cohort-ranks of pungent spikes.
Her friend keeps bees and tells her they will feed

on this exclusively, bittering his honey,
bringing down its price. So he watches;
when the umbels bloom he moves his hives.

She'd like to query those who thought of Anne;
these tiny droplets in a sea of lace
Need not have been a queen's: she tells herself

her own blood has fed this thorned and rock-
embedded acre thoroughly. So, queen
of weeds, she! Or queen of just-enough.

it is quiet out there

It is quiet out there now. She
Takes her hat, stick and forage bag,

Into which she slips her pruners, then
Slides her feet into green clogs, feeling

Quite exurban-agrarian, ready to look
Under brush piles and into cottonwoods --
In every place that might consent to harbor
Even a hint of birds' music. They have flown,
The silence tells her; those that haven't died.

Out along the roadside she waves to cars,
Understanding her neighbors have to drive,
Then pockets up crabapples, berries, leaves

That now are turning away from green: cat's ear,
High mallow, chicory, plantain, sow thistle, her
Ears pricked for passing flights of geese.
Really, thinks she to herself, there ought
Even now to be more birds. There are

Not so many feral cats round here as that.
Or could it be the sprays? She supposes
War has been declared. A war on song.

terrified of them

Terrified of them she was through long

Experience being swarmed with stings,

Running, her hands over eyes and mouth,

Running to the house or jumping in the lake,

In whatever way possible to stop the punishers.

For years, she made herself their nemesis

In revenge, setting nests afire! Or in

Evenings inverting a glass bowl upside

Down over their holes to watch them starve.



Only in recent years, as her ways have slowed,

Finding in books their part in the scheme of



Things as helpers in garden and orchard,

Has she learned to move more gently

Even as they light on her cidery hands,

Milking fingers for juice, never stinging.

and now it sings

She stands in wet and likes it; drips rolling 
around the brim of her split-bamboo conical
hat to fall on thirsting clay. Here's

weather at last, there having been sun,
sun, sun, a lip-cracking and tree-splitting
dry, since the vernal equinox. Nothing

had been vernal about it, and her land
knew so. The very fir limbs sulked;
willows on creek banks browned up and died;

birds fell everlastingly silent, dropping
on needle-sharp tufts of what had been haymow
beneath their perches in rattling cedars;

fish sought pools deeper than any there were,
crowding in together, fin by fin, 
gulping and grunting, then rolling over

to bump along hot, slimed rocks and lodge
somewhere, stinking. Her crops had miniaturized,
flavorful but insufficient to pay her labor;

She'd lost heart and let vining morning glories
into her cracked farm at last. And now here
comes weather. Not enough to top off the well,

maybe, and certainly not enough to start the creek.
But here she stops, catching chill -- watching
a goldfinch settle on fence wire with a twist

of foraged thistledown. It drops the meal,
opens its beak, cranes skyward. And now it sings.

these are highlands

These are highlands, in a region of highlands, so
not especially notable. It takes a long
time to get there, though the graveled road

is short enough; park and walk -- not far,
but bring a lunch and water. Sign in; it's wilderness
according to the kiosk and its map.

Immediately you have shade. These are
Douglas fir, mountain hemlock, perhaps
some red cedar. Beneath, on both sides the trail,

a scattering of vine maple, ocean spray,
rhododendron, and, in the draws, willow.
Sometimes bear grass is in flower;

not this year. As late season turns, first
vanilla leaf, then devil's club, then red
huckleberry, then the blue, will shade through

gold to sienna to cranberry: cool nights.
Kinnickinnick under foot will be your sign
you are straying; do not lose the path.

Along the way are springs, but they are dry;
near them are holes of mountain beaver,
a town like that of prairie dogs. You will

not see them; they go abroad at night.
Admire twinflowers and trilliums, though
they are past bloom. So it is as well

with gooseberry and false Solomon's seal --
they are tired now, and long for snow.
As your path turns upon itself and climbs

rocks and trees will change to andesite
and alpine fir; soil to red dust, shrubs
to ceanothus. Now you discover that view

eyes come here to see; a mountainscape
of scree and scarp and what remains of ice,
not far away as the crows fly, yet leaning

over miles of air, blue with smoke and firs.
You may eat, and drink your water, leaving some
for your return. Wait here for me a bit

while I go to see a stone nearby
where both my parents' ashes lie at rest.

where are the potatoes

Where are the potatoes, she wondered, watching

Heat shimmer across her corn block, its leaves

Each rustling against other, turning brown.

Right here they were planted, next bed over,

Evenly spaced, in two long lines, eyes up



And covered in soft soil, mixed with compost --

Really exactly as she had done these fifty years.

Early next morning, she reached for her mason's hammer,



The experiment with the spud hook having failed, and

Heaving her old bones down onto her gardening stool

Exactly at the end of that mysterious weedy bed;



Pulled block after block of solid hexagonal clod

Over, busting up each as she went, feeling for

That coolness she knew as round starch balls

All her life she'd depended on. It's not 

That she hadn't watered and weeded, no,

Or fought those gophers well, newly arrived.

Earth could not drink for once, it seemed.

Some spuds appeared. They were even



Smaller than those from last year. Some felt

Hollow. Some were cracked. Some were

Even green with poisons though they'd grown



Well deep enough never to have seen sun.

Oh, well, she thought, I'll take what I can get;

Now we'll have barley for every other soup, with 

Dandelion to help stretch out my kale. This

Earth, she told herself, never did all,

Really even in days of rain. Barley I bought.

Ere I go forth from here as buried flesh or ash, I'll

Do as I have done: work with what is.

 

she has work to do

She has work to do, establishing
Her anchor threads, her frame threads,
Even her bridge thread and all her radii,

Hub to be ready by dawn, herself resting --
All-powerful, so far as any lacewing can
See. Seeking out the ripest berries, she 

Works not to eat drupelets, but entirely to
Offer them as bait to fruit flies and their ilk.
Right away along comes another
Killer, a ladybird beetle, seeking the berries

Too, and for the same reason. He's caught,
Offers resistance, is overwhelmed, rolled up,

Done. Whatever comes in, if protein, her
Ovum will accept. Death it is brings life. 

three deep breaths

Three deep breaths, palms together,

Here in her room, or elsewhere, she may

Rise and take. A habit she has formed,

Even as most of her ideas, ideals,

Even her so cherished findings, hard found,



Deducted, inducted, reasoned, debated, polished,

Even those most like faith, as taught her,

Even those most like science, measured, observed,

Peeled one by one: a human desert, she.



By three deep breaths, she centers somehow: how?

Reality itself a question she's no longer asking,

Eating and sleeping themselves provisional.

All she bothers to call caring is now to listen

To breath, room sounds, outside sounds, to

Her friends, their worries unpacked, their voices

Spending both hope and pain. She bows.

clearing the knotweed

Commonly, this is done with herbicide.
Leery of that, she tried a chain saw. That was
Easy enough, but made fumes and sets fire to
All the earth's air over time. Electric clippers
Ruled the roost awhile, but that, we know,
In the scheme of things is but a longer tailpipe,
Neither the labor direct nor personal. She's
Going to have to simplify further. She takes

The hand pruner with her to the patch. It means
Her time in blighted shade, bending, will be
Extended, reaching to each stem in turn,

Killing with a snip and twist, dragging four or five
Not so much weeds as small trees outward
Or upward from the dry wash, toward hot sun,
Toward the roasting garden, into the paths
Where they'll be tossed as instant mulch
Entreating the drought to respect their shade,
Entreating irrigation not to evaporate,
Dimming, in sacrifice, the roving eye of Death.

what she will do

What she will do today is walk and take in

Hand her apple staff, leaning on it

As she does now, more and yet more 

The nearer arriving to a last heart beat



She comes, and check for vegs and berries.

Here are yet more peas; she's not as

Eager for them as three days ago.



With a bit more busy-ness, she'd go

In for blanching those. Onions and

Leeks too small yet; almost out of

Lettuce; tomatoes on the other hand



Doing well, and some ready already.

Oh, she could cut kale, collards or chard



This morning like any late spring morning,

Only she's hungry for something more.

Do what she will, there are yet no pears,

Apples, zukes, potatoes, corn, or beans.

You must make with what you have.