Poetry Series
Steven Federle
- poems -
2
Afternoon Moon
On this concrete pad,
worn thin by time and rain,
our two iron chairs
stand empty and lifeless
when two blackbirds descend
onto rusty iron arms, waiting
in uneasy repose,
glancing sharply,
their beaks parted, tasting
the constant wind,
and rise when they decide
the time is perfect,
perfect like this brilliant
California day and
this endless
California sky
all morning-clouds blown
east to Nevada, and all
morning-fog pushed back
to the crawling Pacific,
with nothing between us and
the absolute universe
but the truant moon,
nearly transparent,
faded blue
like my jeans,
and washed out
to perfection.
Steven Federle
3
Baptism
Rain falls
peaceful, unceasing
filling brimful
the bright day.
Liquid shimmer
glowing ocean
softly silting soil
like love
filling full an empty soul,
O cleanse me
as, trembling,
sinful, I walk into
your sacred font.
Steven Federle
4
Benediction
They came suddenly.
First I heard brash honking,
and then, craning my neck to the limit,
I saw them, wide wings moving in perfect formation
as powerfully they stroked the grey air, assertive necks stretched,
like golden swimmers, low and big, they barely cleared
tree-top and roof, but rapidly crossing my small
portion of earth, soon clearing my eastern
fence, the geese were gone to visit
other neighbors; and wondering
at my good fortune, I felt
contentment and deeply
peaceful, and I
smiled.
Steven Federle
5
Capitol Corridor
The Capitol Corridor moves heavily through the dark,
crossing the thinly guarded streets, blaring, berating
impatient drivers waiting for flashing poles, sparking
their rage as they glare at watches. The ground shakes,
rolling earthquake, Cyclop's eye, headlight throbbing, crushing
bright straight rails, pounding diesel relentlessly hauling
into no-man's land, receding rails guarded only by brush
and grassy grade and two white wooden crosses, with a basketball
and a balloon for the lost children; caught in the sweep of flashing lights,
they first saw the flash, then felt pain, and then blackness swallowed them whole,
the suicide, the missed warning, the lost opportunity, the crying
mother searching deserted tracks. But tonight nobody's here, no
despairing child, drifting, desultory, home no longer an option; and so
undeterred, the silver and blue train rolls heavily on to Sacramento.
Steven Federle
6
Crisis
I look for you in winter’s light
but your face I cannot see.
In spring I found you hidden high
in the living green of the tallest tree.
But now in winter's still, grey sky
for you with aching heart I seek.
Where have you gone? Oh, show me your face
and rescue me from my barren faith.
Steven Federle
7
From this High Window
From this high window
the invisible wind
moves silent trees:
motion without sound,
dance without song.
Behind painted walls
and heavy curtains,
I cannot not hear
the tumult,
but opening the heavy door,
at last I hear the trees sing,
stirred to passion
by unseen hands
waving branches
swept up
by the compelling wind,
and drawn outside,
exposed and complete,
finally I face the clear maelstrom,
my own hair flying free,
and gaze at the trees,
wild men
dancing as they chant
savage hymns
to their howling god.
Steven Federle
8
Gravity
We walk secure, grounded, heavy, oblivious,
safe from perplexing weightlessness,
unlike Life Savers candies on Atlantis spinning theatrically
as glittering Las Vegas floats beneath,
or those rusty spherical droplets
of Tang, humorlessly drifting over the Indian Ocean;
we are safe even as Kubrick's treacherous computer,
tenderly releases the cradled voyager to drift reeling away,
receding, smaller and smaller, no longer a man,
a fading star, and then just gone,
unclaimed even by the false gravity
of his mother-ship.
Yes, we are safe because she holds us tightly, binds
us with unseen, loving coils, lest we range to adventures
too high, too dangerous,
too unnatural;
the bungee jumper, skydiver, snowboarder, eventually all learn
her love is costly,
and even tired, timid professors shudder
when top floor classrooms into basement labs fall;
then, with violent, jerking movement,
her jealous love pulls us, prize seed all,
into the deep, cool soil of newly furrowed cities,
Chendgu, Port-au-Prince, Santiago,
San Francisco,
and Gravity, jealous lover, finally claims us as her own when
in the recesses of our graves we wait,
germinal, for the static earth again
ardently to quake.
Steven Federle
9
Grounded
The afternoon breeze
rushes through the top of my big tree;
its canopy sways and sings in hushed tones
as the declining sun ignites
its outermost leaves
with green fire.
Through swaying limbs
I see brilliant summer sky
promising stars beyond
if only I can rise high enough
to achieve black space;
but I’ve never been there, never risen
beyond this illusionary, flat world
that confines my sight.
Never have I ascended that pillar of flame,
pressed deeply against the astronaut’s contoured seat,
breathing noisily in helmeted glass,
as computers glow reassuringly in darkness,
promising that everything will work,
and orbit will be achieved.
No, my space journeys are all interior.
Earth-bound, I am firmly cradled in my deep, leather chair,
and only through my high, arched window
view the nightly dance of wind and tree,
of moon and rising stars.
Envious, I hear excited starlings, one to another,
tell stories of daring flight
through the good sky, high
above this green,
firm earth.
Steven Federle
10
How Shall I Remember You?
How shall I remember you
searching memory’s dark, dry rooms?
Under high ceilings and dim attic lamps
I hear only echoes of my childhood’s lost past.
You’re calling me outside, past the dark screen door
onto the back porch, to watch the gathering evening storm,
and there I see the willow tree, dancing in the wind
its long green leaves thrashing the sky, its supple branches bend
when following its sure, straight path, the lightning struck it down
and, like all things ultimately, smashed it dying into the ground.
Although I’ve searched these dry, long years after both of you had died,
my tears are done, I see the sun, and my flashing anger is now satisfied.
Steven Federle
11
Meditation on a Grey Morning
Grey morning
lights
the bland sky.
Black birds light
on bare trees
thin limbs wavering
as they flit
scanning
the frozen earth.
All the world is waiting,
to unwind explosive buds
to shed thin shrouds
and burst into emerald light
as joyful black birds rise
into the endless
blue sky.
Great is their faith,
these birds and trees.
They know beyond all reason
that the sun
will thaw
the icy grip
of violent winter
Steven Federle
12
Morning Bright
Morning bright, night chill gone,
the scented wind stroking
high, pliant branches,
and I wait for you
in our summer garden;
lush in leaf and yellow rose
and silky grass
in vernal sunshine,
and it's you I wait for in the ivy shade
watching our lazy cat
stretch her dappled fur
on the bright, sun soaked
concrete step.
Like the tender vine
in the warming soil
I am content
to wait
for you.
Steven Federle
13
Nearly Ripe
Nearly ripe, these green apples
hang heavy
from our bursting tree,
the warm evening sun
glinting through swaying branches.
They will be ready
in about a week.
Then I’ll slice them into sweet crescents
And their taste will dance upon your tongue
with all the secrets our tree has been keeping,
its living leaves,
its smooth, grey bark,
its very roots
grasping deep
into our dark soil,
and these glowing, green apples
I will make bare and white and moist,
a love offering like perfect wine for you,
and your taste will delight
in the sweet, green love
of the earth.
Steven Federle
14
Night Train
The urgent night train,
rushing quite near
calling me, calling me
come away from there.
Listen! the whispering wheels
rumble on;
not a moment to lose,
but in a moment
long gone.
Despairing,
in the dark night I hear
a distant train calling
in another man’s ear,
and wondering
how opportunity’s lost
I feel in the wind
my fear’s cold cost.
Steven Federle
15
Rough Weather
Cumulonimbus
pressing in from the sea
squall-line, supercell, windsheer,
violent, ragged fingers
reach down, ready to pull
the trigger
and end our
green world.
Steven Federle
16
Seaward
Seaward waits, poised,
gently rising and falling,
by the concrete pier
ready for our cruise;
the polished bowsprite,
jutting in defiance,
fills my heart
with an undefined dread.
Underway at last on the calm Sausalito channel
we strike sail, ropes winching
the mainsail tight, the foresail stretched
to catch freshening breezes pushing up
from the foggy Golden Gate;
but I see only
watery desolation:
no familiar, solid road
no bright guiding line,
no golden prize
as we speed across
the dark, green desert.
The wind, no longer a breeze,
becomes a cold gale, flailing our faces,
making us hurry into windbreakers and hoods,
and when I turn my tingling cheeks
towards the shrouded city, suddenly
out far and in deep, I see
pelicans soaring and plunging to the kill,
ducks skimming low over the sea like fighter squadrons,
and sea-lions spying on us at water level,
their dog-sly eyes following our every move.
Warfare fills this place
as species battle species, and
Darwin writes all the rules.
On this voyage of discovery
we are like school-children gaping in wonder
at colorful plastic buckets of bay water
revealing sea-worms, and spider-crabs,
preying on tiny krill delicately inching
over fronds of firm sea lettuce.
So the bay is not a desert;
life pours over it,
on it, and under it,
claiming at every level
of this moist, roiling world
its birthright,
17
and we are unwitting participants in this struggle
tossed high and low in our powerful, winged schooner,
gliding lightly, scooning swiftly on our voyage
through the turbid, turbulent waters,
through the violent,
living bay.
Steven Federle
18
Sonnet for a Grey Morning
Another grey morning, much like the last
and for tomorrow, more fog’s the forecast.
When days seem the same, life always seems cold.
Night flows to night, the sad world grows old
as clouds wrap my soul in still, fatal pall
but hearts must be silent, though bold blood calls
for death to cruel winter, and end to dark days,
fair spring to release enthralled golden rays.
But looking at you, I see in your eyes
the brilliance lost from blue summer's last sky
and when you smile, in your warm glow I feel
your love overwhelm me, new suns revealed.
Overcast, confined though the earth may be
with you in my day, spring’s born endlessly.
Steven Federle
19
Sunset
The evening wind stirs
our high, green trees,
whispering down the westering sun,
as shadows scale our eastern fence.
The sun surrenders its May heat
to a cooling Suisun breeze,
while already looming
on the eastern horizon,
rising from the gentle green swell
of low delta hills,
the copper moon vaults
into the cobalt,
its ascendant mastery astonishing
even the wading, gazing egret,
as on the other side
of our slowly rolling planet,
the bleeding sun declines,
searching the sea for healing.
Thus, from conflict and transition,
come poise and redemption.
Steven Federle
20
the fog lifted yesterday
we grew used
to the low sky,
bland light
grey blight
over our dim
winter lives,
when suddenly the sky soared
the sun streamed gold and red
crossing the broad blue spread
of pure, clear
atmosphere.
Steven Federle
21
The Homecoming
When you were in Vietnam
we got your letters, two or three at once
and then the whole house buzzed like a nest
of honey drunk bees as we poured over
your every word.
We kids imagined you, strong, tough,
blazing with righteous American fury
cutting down those dirty commies,
but Mom and Dad
read each letter more slowly
glancing at each other
with darker looks.
Then one day we got the recording you made,
tiny plastic reels, shiny brown tape wound
in fragile loops; your voice!
just like you were in the room, speaking
re-assuring, everyday chat about R&R
and shopping in Bangkok. Finally,
the tape nearly spent, you said that
you were coming home soon.
And one bright July morning
you came home! Your hat was rakishly tilted,
a Lucky Strike cigarette carelessly drooping
from the corner of your grinning mouth,
all paratrooper swagger, gold braid running
through your buttoned shoulder loops,
colored ribbons and medals all over your chest.
As you walked through the door
I stood aside, awestruck, shy.
You sat like a visitor in your own home
and we opened the packages you brought for us,
Christmas in July, as one by one we held
our Asian wonders, and watched
as Mom held your hand and
Dad searched your eyes.
But you were tired, so upstairs in my room
you took a midday nap, and when Mom told me
to wake you for supper, I nudged your shoulder
and you bolted,
breathless,
down the steps,
into the quiet street
and stood at tense attention,
(the neighbors all gawking) ,
as you waved your M-16
made of air
22
and memory,
and waited
for the mortars
to fall
and kill us all.
Then the light returned to your eyes.
Slowly you walked back to the house
and gently took me by my shoulders
and told me to never,
never
touch you when you were asleep,
and I never asked you why.
Steven Federle
23
The Mute Pain of Trees
Cezanne’s rough, jutting trees
slashing the blotted sky,
at the dark bridge at Mainte,
stone arches stoically standing
as scarred trees hang low,
over the still, black Seine;
while in the Grove of Heroes
an ancient redwood
twisted trunk,
tense muscles,
aching, rising,
spiraling past scars,
past clean cuts of
amputated branches,
beyond the tops
of lesser trees,
all pain forgotten,
spreads its green crown
and shoves the blue July sky
a little higher.
Steven Federle
24
The Vine
The ugly stump, desolate, dead
and too deep to pull, waited for my saw,
but I, lazy and pre-occupied, lingered
as winter inundated
the mud and rock desert
outside our kitchen window.
Then spring came, and all excuses spent,
I slogged out, grim executioner,
ready to cut and pull,
when I beheld green, craggy fingers praying
for just one more chance;
so putting the saw back into our messy garage,
we began the project,
raking, hoeing, cutting, digging
(hard work for a lazy man)
and soon sod to lay
and bricks to haul for the patio,
when, bushwhacked, we spied
the truant stump
proclaiming itself a grape vine,
stringy runners running rampant
through the little garden we built around it,
hooked fingers grabbing for anything
to pull nascent leaves up,
up to the warming April sun,
out of the dark winter earth,
and alarmed we cut it back, fearful vintners,
afraid for threatened geraniums
and knock-out roses,
but a treaty agreed upon, the vine settled
for one corner and left the rest
to more delicate flora.
Life will not be denied
in our backyard.
Steven Federle
25
This Rising
I wanted to be the thundercloud
pounding fury in electric flashes,
but impatiently the earth pulled me down,
and trapped me, like silent, winter tule fog,
pausing over dark, delta waters
until I rose over the darkening valley
and observed the crescent moon
ascending over seaward hills,
effervescent disc
dissolving into death,
while radiant, scimitar edge,
rent the black night.
In the pure air at last,
just beneath the black vacuum of my limit,
I discern the elevated host,
this consecrated, bloody body,
in the agony of redemption,
in the glory of this perfect moment,
this nexus of heaven and earth,
this rising.
Steven Federle
26
Towards 280 (after Wayne Thiebaud)
Vibrant canvas, undulant colors
thin lines of thick paint
streaking white fields,
of bright California light.
The blue road plummets
into wider boulevards.
Down steep freeways
over shadowed s-curves
the black cars streak.
Past the pink condo
rising high along the blacktop,
its thrusting blue shadow slicing
the indurate road,
they drive down bright 280
past creamy waves of warehouse
through fields of pale gold,
where at last they converge
on the incipient, blue
bay.
Steven Federle
27
Transcendent Thunder
Deep thunder shakes this warm July evening
and lightning flashes over the waterfront
filling the clear, starry sky with acrid clouds and glimmering rain
falling to the water as children gaze
in shock and awe,
waiting for the next big one to explode.
False bombardment as celebration:
such fits my nation, founded in genocide and slavery,
this nation baptized in the blood and tears
of Navaho and Cherokee and all the tribes of the American holocaust
a nation that devoured one quarter of its sons
in four short, blood-soaked years; my nation,
a nation of efficient bigots and hungry hypocrites,
giving the world Gettysburg and the Trail of Tears
as models for problem-solving;
a nation unlike any other, not able to live up to its promises
because no other nation dares make such promises.
The bright violence of rockets' red glare lights our sky
like the bold Declaration ignited the world, and thunder
rocked mighty kings from complacent belief in their divine rights,
rocked the people of Europe, thirsting for their own rights
and land and a chance to pursue a little happiness;
yes, rocked even distant Asia, deep in its ancient dream
foolish men joyfully following the distant thunder
to seek the fabled Golden Mountain.
The promise was made and broken and made yet again,
and the anger of betrayal torched the cities of the sixties,
and singed our hearts
and in the redeeming pain of change
made them a little less impure.
Yes, we are imperfect,
but we know our sins
and pay for them over and over again,
and to remind ourselves of the debt yet unsatisfied,
every summer we celebrate in the only way fitting for such a nation;
In the starry sky fiercely glowing with liberty
and in the transcendent thunder
of the Promise.
Steven Federle
28
Unripe Apples Fall
Unripe apples fall
and lie wasting on the ground,
spots spreading into brown,
circles, decaying, waiting
for sun and time to gently take
seminal seeds into the warm earth.
Small birds fall
down low
from their high, swaying tree,
to where patient
fallen apples
melt and glow.
Two looming hawks rise
waiting for the time to be right,
to turn their dark wings
and with swift silent stroke
give feathered death
to these surprised souls,
casting them like seeds
into the dark soil.
Steven Federle
No comments:
Post a Comment