On Uncanoonuc Mountain
On Uncanoonuc Mountain
the loon, “the laugh of the deeply insane”
— John McPhee
We sat on the ledge near Tipping Rock
on Uncanoonuc Mountain whose native name
means woman’s breast. We listened for echoes,
sifted through last autumn’s leaves and moss
for rocks smaller than our palms, and lobbed
them counting out until we heard them hit
the ground below us. Fathom measure.
A distance calculation using time. A test of depth.
We heard the loon, its eerie laugh
of the deeply insane. It was somewhere
on the distant lake. We surmised it couldn’t find
its mate. In our minds, it circled trailing a wake
the way loneliness follows loss.
He said he’d spoken to our cancer-stricken mother
dead for over thirty years. And she had sung to him.
Tura Lura. Like the loon. And she looked good —
her cheeks were pink again. And I looked down
at a hangnail and shook my head.
I said, No — you didn’t,
closing my eyes without my eyes closing.
Pink
When pink touches clouds
that sky you waited for all night
opens
and now the day
puts your dreams to rest
so you can focus on your body
breathing, forget all the things you said
in darkness
naked, under the covers
with the cats nudging you in
to wait a little longer
tuck your legs in, I am your wife
got up with the alarm
but you, buzzed from late-night coffee
sink into your reality of HERE
take over the warm bed space
curl up like a baby, soft in all that is right
in your world.
Counting Down to Zero
I’ve known a lot of nines in my life,
Numeral Nine’s a gregarious guy, a dandy
with his hat tilted over one eye. He smiles,
then always waltzes off with someone else
while I reach for another hors d’oeuvre.
Eight holds an endless Mobius conversation
with its neutered self. Those stacked zeroes
are hard to trust unless we believe
in Buddha’s Noble Eight-Fold Path
and the eight delights of Tao: color, sound,
kindness, righteousness, liturgy, music, wisdom
and knowledge. And the double helix of DNA.
Lucky Seven is hard to beat, plays pool,
keeps his flattop spiked, will fight for food,
this seventh son, shooting craps, lounging
and leaving without a goodbye to our host.
Six sits on his big butt, eating chips and salsa,
greasy fingers on the table cloth, but
even-tempered, he gets along with everyone
so long as no one steals his Doritos.
I might have married Six if he had asked me.
The number whom I did marry, Mr. Five,
always looks ahead to the next quick sale,
master of the short break a la Brubeck,
and then he’s gone again, half way
to a double-digit income.
Four is womanly, gives us four paws
on a bear, the corners of an intersection,
directions on a map, stable legs on the table.
Four keeps order in the world. Then again,
she owns the taunt “Four Eyes” as well as
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
Contentious, Three’s the woman in control
of the Magi, the Holy Family, the Christian Trinity
and the triple Celtic goddess. Crowds begin with her.
Her power breaks the bonds of Two, who thinks
he’s the only electron binding all the couplings
that matter. Mr. Big Binomial. What’s new, Two?
Keep both eyes wide open. She’s after you.
Ah, and now we arrive at One, the individual
fully realized, the caryatid holding up the roof,
the spinal column transporting energy, chakra
to chakra, straight trunk of oak and pine,
a common divinity since Genesis. She maintains
perfect posture, living as she does next to nothing,
the emptiness of the bowl that holds our soup.
The Octopus and the Tyrant
Octopus vulgaris, a carnivore, can
hide in plain sight by changing
his color and shape, emitting clouds
of black ink that dulls the sight
and sense of smell in his enemies.
Venomous saliva subdues his prey.
Vulgaris has three hearts and blue blood,
eight arms with 240 suckers each.
He turns red with anger, amasses
a fortune in shells to build a fortress
around his lair. On the East Coast
a king tide has flushed an octopus
white with fright, out of the deep
into a cement-walled parking garage
stinking of motor oil and gasoline,
no sustenance there, no freedom,
only a sermon in salt water and sludge.