Trickster

Utopia Parkway

69 Utopia Parkway 1. It’s easy to see how we forget ourselves in the rain’s momentary colonnades & passageways: things are not as they could be; the animal is cold, tired, hungry & every question is a question of human nature, a warmth that clings to the sheets, whims & dreams intertwined— “fold up absolutely flat & then unfold into stars.” 70 2. Even a forest knit to a hill passes between worlds— (a “deer’s foot imprinted in mint bed”) releases a trace & melts away, a trace trembles the air & I am awake, all things being equal, a blade of grass equal to the suffering of a lifetime, a passing away into things “wagons & vehicles in motion, vehicles of fantasy—” 71 3. “This benedictory beauty ‘the American scene’” backyard rustic antics the old dog’s nose to the wind “to ‘catch it’ (being) life”— stars in the leaves over the house soap-bubble constellations (light years ago) & what is to be done even before we spoke all still to be done. 72 4. Under the house, things take on a life of their own dirt keeps finding its way in & nothing will stay put— house & darkness fuse “something quiet working out from ‘nothing’”— time rising up out of things like steam rising off the fence— the old dog licks my hand to keep walking unseen hands guide me “Orion wheeling towards the horizon,” invisible dark feeding life & its light sustaining it— 73 5. Wandering room-to-room, dematerializing— these lessons in my body, sugary high words then exhaustion & the dream of a blue peninsula, so purposefully quiet & hard to find— “the ineffable—its warmth & freshness” is nothing like I imagined: a gray squirrel rolling in dirt, dusting up the light. 74 6. “The wonder of light especially ‘life continuing’” giggles, freckles & the blush of youth— a slip of a girl, hips & shoulders asway, all the green spring leaves drinking up the light— how did I become so sure watching the fence rot away visible & invisibles the scent of pine needles & fresh cut grass— this immense stillness to which I can add nothing like some “elation of star gazing” joining us in & of itself like wind caressing the grass like something sweet we lick off our fingertips. 75 7. A young buck (his horns fleshy stubs) rears up on the green clipped lawn (belly flashing white) stealing apples, licking the juice from his dark lips— all our “flashing & yearning” like swallows, diving into our own darkness, “again beautiful & unfailing,”— the crows are adamant the god-like trees are theirs & theirs— & the fear that drove us mad with death & treachery that, “(should not even be spoken of)” 76 8. One “half struck down one half still bearing blossoms—” I try to make myself appear “where the ‘blue swallow’ (the dark one) was last seen” where a fly with one wing keeps tipping over in the grass, where the ants will have him where all that’s done is done— The blackbirds wake me sing me to sleep, back “into those dreams of woods relayed to you”— ...