Oak of the Golden Dream

The oak that used to watch
me twenty years ago was gone
one day.  Huge, it was, in
the middle of an onion field.
A friend in summer, a skeleton
of beauty in winter, home
to hawks and crows. There's a Lowe's
there now, where they sell
oak flooring, oak tables,
oak of every kind, except living.


The old covered train trestle
that watched over
the Santa Clara River
is gone, too.  I only just
noticed last week,
riding past the new
apartment complexes,
shopping centers,
and foreclosure signs
on my way to God knows where.

I wonder if they'll notice
when I'm gone, too.  Gone
to find the oaks, and bridges
and history that California
left behind.

Look away, look away, look away.

In a Dream

At dawn when the fog
lay heavy on the lake
and sounds were muffled,
I picked blackberries
In a dream.

The world was soft and white,
no vivid blue sky to
sear my eyes and make
them tear.  I stood where
the bluff sloughed off into
emptiness, and peered down
to see if I could find myself.

I listened, but heard only
The grass whispering, shhhh,
Its lilting voice urging calm.
I saw a jeweled coil
At my feet, and thought
It was a gift from you.

I reached, but it moved,
And before I knew what
Tricks can lie in fog-shrouded
Dawns and dreams, it struck * a snake.
You.

And as I fell headfirst into
Whiteness, I woke, in sheets
That wrapped me up in dread.
Our bed.  In white.

Pink Flesh

We picked figs under a white moon
the night you left, your jaw set
and determined, though I tried to soften
it with sweet pink flesh, peeled and offered up
with powdered sugar.

You'd have none of it, sent me to the
bedroom to find the old suitcase
with the bamboo handle -- the one
you carried through Europe the summer
Mama died.  That was the year the birds
all left.  Remember?

You lived in that little shotgun house
on Highway 61, and played harmonica
for hours on end, tears trailing
the dust down your cheeks.  I looked
for you then, but you were done.

I whipped butter in a bowl, crushed
figs and cried for all the birds
that would never get to steal them,
picked and put up as preserves
to sit on shelves forgotten 'til
the end of time.