No shortcut

All morning the work demands
and I comply.

Note cards written, signed and stamped.
the cat's cry and needs all met.

Every bit of dirty laundry washed and dried.
every memory of him pushed aside.

I've more important tasks than mourning;
living flowers in my yard need corning

and

who'll cook for kids if I'm forlorn?
But there's no shortcut to forgetting.

It takes time and time and time until
we're riven, it takes all the time we're given.

Thoughts about eternity when I see the bee

A bee's wing rubs the hot tub's edge,

an autumn leaf her burial rug

she looks to be napping

but upon inspection,

it's clear she's freshly drowned.


Her legs folded awkwardly

like a crumpled ballerina.


The plump bee needs no more air to drive her.


Trillions of her kind have supped the planet's flowers.

She matters no more nor less than any other bee

or any other flower or any other planet

or than me.


We are equal in our brief hunt for sweet.


In untold sunsets, we'll return together,

this bee and me, our shrouds of matter,

specks and sparks spinning in the furnace.


Our common destiny to drift from star to star

without a single memory.

Full moon over Lake Chabot

Watch the moon step

down the hills

on swollen knuckles

then watch it roll

into the black and silent lake.

Now watch my heart

bewitched forget

the countless insults of the day

now watch the moon

lead this dark away.

What I love about youth

It all starts with many days,
long and gradual

lulling and liquid

loose days that lay about,

taking up space
without encumbrance
lying full moon nights

sewn together into boughs,
a giant wood of days
vast and lush.

Days begetting days.

That's what I love about youth.

When I pass the old cemetery on Hesperian

It's when I pass the graveyard where old
headstones wilt in the thistle wreaths

and fog bends to sob over
the whole sad and lonely mess.

It's when I park the car and point
my camera to the ravens turned to me.

That's when my dearest dead, one
by one raise a beautiful head.

The beautiful head each one had.
Rife and perfect.

And I begin to fret, who'll remember
their beauty when I'm gone?

When the headstones fall to pieces and
the night of nights hide every trace?

And the black birds on the limb carry on
with no thought of the lovely faces hidden here.