MARCH -- BEGINNING A BAJA ADVENTURE

LIKE CELLS IN A SINGULAR ORGANISM

Packed tight on the plane,

every seat filled,

even the aisle crowded with cart,

somehow

I feel strangely at one

with this bunch –

the bent, elderly oriental woman,

the black with chains hanging from his waist,

the muscle man in tank top and tattoos,

the pert young girl budding her breasts,

the homely woman next to me

munching a bar of dark chocolate,

            even myself.

And, like cells in a singular organism

we swim our way across a common sky

sinking into the sunset.

Sometimes, I wonder why

I avoid, can’t stand, and seek isolation

from this humanly mass. 

Sometimes with a glass of wine

we’re almost tolerable. 

THE GOOD SON

It’s Mother’s birthday, the first one

without her smile, I have

no more wants and very few needs,

and You shouldn’t have.

Now on a plane to LA

and tomorrow another plane to Mexico

to kayak and see whales,

Mother would have approved.

She liked adventure

and took it wherever she could

through the deserts of the Southwest,

the barren hills of the Holy Land,

and across the crowded streets of Europe.

It’s been seven months since her dying

and I smile to recall

her oft repeated travel warnings,
John, don’t drink the water,
watch out for pickpockets,
and be sure

to take all your medications.

Mother, I still hear you!

BAJA, MEXICO (FROM 24,000 FEET)

Brown, wrinkled,

ragged, peaked in white,

coursed by stream beds

long gone dry,

aged, peninsula’d,

surrounded by supple seas

            of leviathans

a land

aching, thirsting

for whatever the gods

            will give

maybe

even love.

FIRST DAY IN LORETO

I was on a roll this early morning

as the sun was up, the skies blue, and the faces

of this Baja desert town friendly. 

On the first person I saw I tried, Hola

and a smile.  It worked.  Walking on, bolder,

I tried, Buenos dias.  That too worked.

I stopped to buy coffee, but didn’t know,

Coffee to go, so tried, Café camino with smile

and that too brought results. 

A merchant washing his sidewalk

nodded to my Buenos dias and gave away

the favor of an agreeable face.

A dusty brown dog gave no notice,

but the time-share salesman did, I’m Felipe

from San Felipe. I’m here to impress you

not depress you.  However, the day brought better

with Mariano the Huichol Indian and his

colorful beads that told the story of his people.

I walked those dusty streets from early

morning through the sleepy afternoon siesta, 

by families eating ice cream and taking

time to smile, and on until the yellowed shadows

of day grew long and my knees

ached for surrender, but not the heart

which found a friend in a small town by the sea. 

OVERHEARD

One day it was, I need to think my thoughts,

not our thoughts.

Then, another time, I’ll talk to you

when your brain comes back.

Ah, the secret joys of eavesdropping.

YEARNING, THIRSTING

Somewhere along the way between Insurgentes

and Lopez Mateos,

on a road that rises and falls in gentle swells

across a brown, desert sea,

and across a parched country of things

that stick and sting

I begin to pay attention to the tall, long-armed

cactus. 

But, it’s not the saguaro with its elbowed arms,

it’s the cardon

standing sentinel tall on this lonely,

arid land

with its long arms reaching

into a blue-eyed sky,

like Adam in the Sistine Chapel painting

yearning for the touch of God

or us thirsting for what we never

quite reach.

FEBRUARY

NIGHT STEW

Last night I woke at 3:30, didn’t get back
to sleep.

The mind-switch had snapped on.

The invitation to kayak Kedges Strait

threw trauma into my pot,

a perceived slight simmered

with way too much seasoning,

and then other qualms came running,

jumped into the night stew. 

I tried to turn the heat down

with the breath of deep breathing,

gave thought to reading

but didn’t want to turn the light on,

thought too of going downstairs

for a glass of milk (but feared

that too would really wake me),

then offered up prayers

to any god that would listen.

But, by this time

another switch had snapped on

and I crawled out of bed,

walked across the cold, tile floor,

used the bathroom,

returned and saw the green face

of the clock

staring impassively

and knew

this night was cooked. 

BECOMING OTHER

Last night I came, sat in your presence,

listened,

wrote a few lines,

offered a few words,

but it wasn’t

until our voices joined together

in vibrant

harmony of song and chant

that I dissolved

and we

became one.

THE WORK OF QUIET

They say, idle hands are the work of the devil,

but I say, Not always so. 

Busy hands were the ones that wanted, craved,

took, amassed, polluted, bombed.

Go, I say, sit in silence, give those idle hands

to the work of quiet, the one you call God. 

MY ISLAND EXPEDITION BELIZE VACATION

THE ARTIST

Coming off the turquoise waters of an Island Expedition kayak trip and arriving back in the seaside town of Dangriga, I sought out a local artist in hopes of finding a colorful street scene painting, maybe making a purchase.  Walking this small town, enjoying the architecture, tropical scenery, and children riding their bicycles, I came upon a small, stucco’d house painted orange with a weathered sign nailed to a post – ARTIST. I knocked, and in time an older black man came, peered out the door of a darkened room. 

I told him my interest and after some hesitation, he said, Come in.  Inside the darkened room my eyes made their adjustment and took in the paintings on the walls, an iron face-down on an ironing board, a doll on a stuffed chair, laundry piled on the sofa, and a hammock that cattycornered the room.

The artist slid under the hammock and from there we continued to talk as the TV played loud music and black birthday faces rolled across the screen. I asked if we could sit and he moved to the stuffed chair with the doll and I crossed under the boundary of the hammock to the sofa and sat with the laundry. Then, he began: 

He talked about a young boy who learned to paint with house paints and make-do brushes, a young man who was given a scholarship to attend an art school in the United States, and about a man whose paintings traveled to England with the president of Belize and some mention of an award from the queen.  He talked about the older man who painted his parents that now stared down at us as if they had just entered the room.  Then, turning to a painting on the wall, he gave a longing smile at a young woman in the bright colors of a sunny day, laundry waving in a breeze on a clothesline, and children at play.

Then the artist invited me into his studio where a board on a bucket served as a pallet and unfinished paintings leaned against every wall.  He said he had trouble now, and at age 76 he didn’t know what was wrong.  He shuffled across the room, picked up a paint brush, held it out in front of him to show the tremor that took over his hand.  He said he just didn’t know when he’d ever finish all these paintings. 

Almost forgetting the purpose of my visit, I finally asked if he had anything for sale.  One was ready, he said, for 1500 Belizean dollars, but then he smiled and said he already knew that was too much for my pocketbook.  I smiled back to the truth of that and brought our conversation to a close.  Then, in his slow shuffle he led me out of the studio, back under the hammock of the darkened room, and out on the front porch where we said goodbye under the glare of an early morning Belizean sun.

Months later back home in Baltimore and out of curiosity, I decided to google the name of the artist I met in Dangriga.  The results brought a slow smile to my face. Benjamin Nicholas never mentioned his paintings, the ones housed in the Smithsonian and in museums all over the world.  

Want to get some sun, warm weather, do a little kayaking, and have a neat vacation experience?  Try -- http://www.islandexpeditions.com/  

MEXICO IN JANUARY

ROSY’S

There was no door,

just a green gate swung open for the day,

an open courtyard,

a roof covered by thatch,

four tables of plastic,

as well the chairs and tablecloths too,

a gray cat curled by the wall,

a brown dog wandered through,

a round brown woman cooked

with skillet, stove, and reluctant smile,

a blind boy hummed, head-bobbed

to CD’d Christmas carols,

a pony-tailed Mexican nodded

for a third bottle of wine,

Rosy in tight sequined jeans and loose white blouse

smiled, moved to the music of this moment. 

 

Rice, eggs, beans

a feast,

this warm January day.

JUST A STORY

(For Elizabeth Walter)

I didn’t sleep well last night.  It was warm, muggy.

Was reading a murder-mystery and caught

in a never ending drama,

and couldn’t let go

to fall

into that place called sleep.

Then I thought, it’s just a book,

just a story,

like any other story,  

yours or mine,

filled perhaps with love, loss, lust, 

remorse, guilt,

anger, doubt,

confusion or maybe hurt,

a story wrapped in the condition

called human,

a story as old as the ages.

Only the actors change  

TROPICAL AFTERNOON

Her face

fell from the fronds of the palm.

His fingers

trembled to unbutton the blouse.

The boat under sail

slid through the opening in the reef,

rose high on the mounting swells of the sea,

fell hungry upon the horizon,

and the tropical bird

shrieked from the throat of longing

as the stilled iguana

stared warmth into the sun.

CHRISTMAS EVE

STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND

I’m a stranger in a strange land,

he said when he called.

Work’s tough.

Into a project I don’t know if I can handle.               

I let the woman I work with emasculate me.

It’s draining.

I go home to bickering.

Wife is upset with son.  Son is upset with wife.

Wife is upset with me that I don’t back her.

I hate it.

He talked some more. 

Then, I told him my usual tales of woe

and the Lyme disease

that had me worn-out weary.

Hey, he said in hanging up,

thanks for really being there when I call. 

That’s important,

you know.

Sure, I said in closing,

thinking how shared mutual misery

always  helps take the sting

out of daily living.

Stranger in a strange land?

Damn, that’s a poem!

TRUCK STOP BLUES

Sometimes a man just has to get out of town,

out on a highway without destination

where he’s lost

from a past that holds no face of future

drive somewhere, maybe along old Route 66

through a lonely, prairie-state county,

deep into the middle of a night

where maybe the light from Eddie’s

Pure Oil Truck Stop pulls him over

for gas at a dollar ninety-eight a gallon,  

and the skinny waitress at the counter,

nighttime pretty to weary eyes,

brings hash browns and eggs-over-lightly

and where his quarter drops into the juke box

for he and old Hank

to croon a lovesick blues

deep into the yellowed light of night.



CHRISTMAS IS COMING -- AGAIN

YOGI HAD IT RIGHT

Another gray day dawns in Baltimore,

another morning of cold,

another 20-some degree day.

Gold peeks above the horizon.

Another Christmas is on its way,

another lame duck congress sits,

rains flood the West Coast.

Snow dumps on the Rockies.

It’s another gray day for the birds,

an Oriole season looms,

hope too that wins beats losses.                       

Juncos feed at the feeder.

The Preakness in jeopardy again,

another head coach fired,

some Republicans say yes.

A poem struggles to find its way.

It’s déjà vu all over again.

WHEN THE WINTER SNOWS CAME

WHILE THE MUSE DANCED IN ARGENTINA

Now how can I write a poem

when nobody’s knocking,

my knees ache like bad teeth,

the cold snap has gone on for too long,

dinner’s riding high in my stomach,  

the evening news has got me down,

my feet want to get away to some place warm, 

the poem is due tomorrow,

my days are sifting away,

Mother’s house waits to be cleaned out,  

Republicans hold the country hostage,      

it’s December 14^th

and I’ve yet to buy my first Christmas gift.

Tell me, you think the muse cares?

TATTERED WING OF FLAME

Driving the hills, the winding roads of Pennsylvania farmland

bent in its brown furrows

across the face of a cold, clear, early autumn day

the red-tailed hawk, bold in sun reflected bronze,

stood solitary sentinel

in a roadside tree shed of its leaves.

In that one burning moment I yearned

to be hawk,

naked in the pure light of day,

holder of crystal vision,

hollow boned,

and winged to touch the heavens

but the heavens -- knowing man was destined

to fly with leaded feet

and walk with tattered wing of flame --

sent me on my way.

YESTERDAY

Aprons, tea towels, letters saved,

stamps too,

postcards from the Holy Land

green Depression-ware bowls,

photographs,

her notes on the back

graduation announcements,

birthday cards from grandchildren,

great-grandchildren too

Dad’s citation for meritorious work,

yellowed news articles,

George Beltzhoover’s obituary,

Mom’s last church photograph,

a smile

from her ninety-first year

the albums, the boxes

saved,

brought home to my house

everything touched.

Tell me,

what did you do with your past?