Snowline halfway up my driveway
Snow sifting from sky in Chiloquin
supplanting rain, though I saw
the waning gibbous moon night
before last awake (the both of us)
about two am.

Taking ten students to Bend
not the girl braiding the other's hair
and not the boys sharing an iPod
perhaps the boy who offered me
a shiv for free jokingly. The girl
whose poem made me cry
had better apply, and the one
I hope is not pregnant.

We read two poems by Jimmy
Santiago Baca and my thought
after the teacher left the room
to have the principal sign
her loan forgiveness documents
and the students took that
as sign that playtime had begun
my thought was what gives?
my thought was why am I here
when I'm so lonely the tears
leapt out of my eyes looking
at the one deeply good poem
written in the room as I walked
desk to desk pretending
I didn't notice their disrespect
and felt useless. Jimmy wrote
in "This Day" to get silly
as robins fussing in the bough
hanging over the ditch.
I'm on it, on it on it.

Rain raining all around in the Klamath Basin
on the shores of Agency Lake
on 97 driving to Klamath Falls
into my kitchen
pooching out the wall
discoloring the cabinet top.
I will never use the GFI outlet
sweating with rain water.
I go outside and stare at the roof
there's a seam where shed roof
meets peaked roof
where the rain gets in
I open the door after midnight
as rain whaps against the ground
the blue tarp that covers the woodpile
my yellow car camoflaged with leaves
the rain sounds like duck hunter rifles
the rain paints fresh yellow
on the yellow path to the lake
the rain sends me maudlin messages
it reminds me of being eleven
hearing The Cascades "Listen
to the Rhythm of the Falling Rain"
on my radio in Seattle
they were from Seattle
rain and Seattle on the radio
famous and about what I saw
out my window, what a fool I'd been,
yes, a fool and I could write that.

No Stopping the Breakage


Clear Pyrex dish that fit my palm -
it's gone. I jarred the drainer
lifting plates.

I held the wine glass delicately
to rinse. It dissolved
within my fingers.

Bisqueware plate separated
along the crack that had held -
possibly for years.

Be careful, I say to myself,
you're accident prone,
yet every thing will break
from us, and every one.

Pain in my thumb fades
till I forget hefting the pole
that punched sudden blood.

I could show you the scar,
but let me delight as my granddaughter
chirps "shoe!" across 400 miles.

Wreckage smolders in far-off countries,
behind others' doors,
in my own heart.

I believe in the flying buttress,
key stone, all that holds what rises,
precarious. We are all precarious.

10/21/10 draft

A weekend in Ashland with my crutch-hobbled honey
Stage craft, stage dressing, the Angus Bowmer Theater
transformed from Elsinore to Hungarian Parfumerie
to Austen drawing room to feudal Japan.
Hamlet hamming it up as a haughty head waiter
later in the week, a 10 hour drive to the coast
for fish and chips at The Crazy Norwegian
where we wished Otto alive so we could bring
him home a cap to wear till it fell to bits, Crazy
Norwegian. Minus Jim I'm back to Chiloquin
where my cabin was chilly though the late afternoon
sun flattened the lake like butter. Pelicans have
flown, the lake pocked with anonymous ducks.
This week's schedule is skewed again - the teacher
says last week was a waste and this week too.
The kids fly up like shore birds, flitty, lost,
chatty gossiping goslings pecking one another's
feathers unfettered from a regular day. Thursday
and Friday they'll have no school - conferences
and teacher day to prepare, kids away so they're
away proactively today. I swayed a few
towards Whitman and Thoreau - who knows
what pens can find in fifteen minutes' time.

First fire two nights ago - I set it perfectly
thought nothing about that, till this morning's
fire fizzled and took buttressing and patience
to ignite. A friend split the wood for me - I
cannot lift the axe that leans against shed wall,
its head free moving in the handle. He
said "where'd this ponderosa come from?"
I didn't know, but I envied that discernment.

Have I set any fires at school? Two junior boys
are writing quotes by themselves to the quotes
I ask the kids to copy. Today is "I'd rather
learn from one bird how to sing/ than teach
500 stars how not to shine." -e.e. cummings.
My number may be wrong.

"I will be remembered long after my death."
is the gist of the quotes, both I hope fervent.
I hope the deaths are far away.

The football team rides crutches, wears splints -
is every one of them injured?

Homecoming Theme is "Night on Bourbon Street."
SIGH. A girl asked my permission to skip class
to work on the senior hall. The teacher asked
me to make them sit through the dismissal bell.
I said, "You do that." But nicer than that.

Back I hope to setting a few kids on fire.

Some days the log in protocols are too much
I stare at this same box - don't you remember me?
Far from home my identity is slippery, pourous,
as liftable as the fog above the lake. I make
mistakes - want validation from my machine.
Perhaps the vaccuum cleaner handle behind
the couch can verify who I am. Simpson sky
this could be Springfield. Somebody's calzone
smells overdone here at the coffee shop. My
students' final drafts sit in the car; I sit here.

Outside after six, my friends the great horned
owls spoke haltingly as I swept the steps.
A large bird waded by the stick that when
reflected later in the day looks like a wishbone.
I tripped on a rock which sent the bird aloft.
I'd wanted to sneak to my outdoor seat
to watch it drowse and rise. I set my pillow
on the log and waited, concentrated on my
breath, or tried - a large bird flew past, low,
I think it was an owl. Two geese conversed
somewhere in the tall grass behind me,
they flew too. The sky flamed a pink so
provocatively alive it frizzled my eyes.
Soon the white pelicans will get the telegram
from their bones or bellies and fly away.
Yesterday none visible near my house,
though a dozen rafted near Modoc Point Road
among the wocus pods.

in the locker room at the pool where we swim outside
in suits and now shower, nude, the woman across from me
says, "joy is the antidote to sorrows." Then she says, "if
you want to save the world, do something that gives you
joy and happiness expands into the world." We'd been
swimming, which, she said, gave her joy. It buoys me
up and up like the giggles of this little girl at the next
table. Joy to the world. It smells of skunk in this cafe,
which bodes well, the old timers say, for a hard winter,
which we need, here in drought country with the
biggest lake west of the Mississippi right beside us.
My swim friend says swimming at the outdoor pool
is even better when it's snowing. "Put your towel in a bag,
turn your flip flops upside down on the deck and swim."
Snow pats your back like a friend, the geothermal
heated water makes "you feel like you're in the ritziest
ski resort in the west." 32 degrees f predicted for tonight,
we could be near to snow. I'll get in the car and go
swimming.

A weekend of poetry abundance
reading and workshop with Paulann
poet laureate of Oregon, former
resident of Klamath Falls,
almost instant friend.
Generous heir of the position
begun by William Stafford,
some straight-ahead shoes
to fill. And Doug Erickson
Special Collections and Archive
Librarian at Lewis & Clark,
who recorded twenty four
Chiloquin High School poets
for Oregon Poetic Voices
online archive, thanks to you!
Here's to abundance, I lift
my Black Buffalo coffee mug.

Sitting in the K Falls Library with ee cummings, Emily Dickinson and the Dickman twins. I've closed Michael's "The End of the West," a poem too raw to let me rummage through like I
usually do. He's brave, this brother. Matthew is more Whitmanesque, protective of
his readers. Michael's more f*(& you, this happened. Oh. What happened yesterday 7th period
(and I thought I was over this but apparently not, I can't stop telling anybody) was a direct
punch to the face, aslant only in that the wielder of the blow was shorter than the receiver. How hair trigger how match to sparkler how falling star fast what happened IS.
I said, "This has to stop." I said, "Stop!" My voice pitched low, I lunged towards what was now a bear hug, the room afire with adrenaline and desire for this to escalate. A troubled class,
ten boys. And where was the certified teacher? And what does a poet know to do?
I knew one thing: this had to stop. I made the boys separate. It stopped. The punchee energized and giddy, the puncher laid his head on the desk partly hidden by his jacket, the room awash in racket that lifted like geese, laboriously and continuously, the rest of the period.

BANNED BOOKS WEEK here in the Klamath Basin.
I photocopied pages of the story 9th graders read
and had to write 5 paragraph essays about. Handed
them the pages, handed them Sharpees. Had them
make BLACKOUT POEMS. Amazing to me that
some didn't wield sharpees, but all gave them back
today. I borrowed 9 from the office, need to give
those back. I prefer to be the endless font
of whatever you want, but physical resources
are limited. "Can I have a quarter?" Jeremy asked
at break. "I don't have any money," I said, then
checked the zippered pocket of my teaching bag.
"Nope. Sorry." He wanted to buy a muffin.
I wanted to give him a quarter. And a million
Sharpees and a good life and dental work.
There is so much more to school than school.
There are germs in the air boring into ears
I'm not talking about microbes. Or earbuds.
I don't even know what I'm talking about,
though my nose hairs detect toxins, head
throbs. Come on, just wield that sharpee over
the page. If you don't know what you're doing
GREAT - please, don't know what you're
doing, it'll be more interesting. Substitute
not too awful, ponytail down his back, my age.
He wants to be a writer, to write a novel or
poems, he could if he had time. "It's all about
showing up at the writing table," I said.
He comes from a family of professional
musicians, can't tune, he said, the radio,
but spent did he say four or forty years
studying math? How come it's all about us
adults and not the kids with the sharpees
on their desks, talking about homecoming?
Nostos is Greek for homecoming, Nostoc
is the genus name for mare's eggs. I saw
thousands of Nostoc yesterday from
my kayak on Spring Creek, held three,
broke one open accidentally, like a water
balloon whamming against the patio floor.
No smell, the colony warty green orbs
dotting the rubbery substance filled
with water. Water bubbles from sand
or ash from I don't know where. The head
of the Creek is a dead end, Spring Creek
is fed by underground springs, like
some children must be to survive.

Vagus Nerve - heard about it on NPR, wrote down "Vegas nerve"
because the commentator called it "The Wanderer".
I Googled (correctly spelled) vagus nerve and discovered
a TLA for a new way your life can be messed up by your body.
VNI, which is associated somehow with hiatal hernia,
and which made my eyes glaze. The Vagus Nerves, there
are two, interconnect your cranium with your vital organs.
The dictionary asked me to look up "vague" - which means
in addition to what you know something about wandering.

Uncertain, tentative, and the 9th graders chat and chat. Not ALL of them. It's important to walk around, to see what kids are doing with their assignment. It's important to remember that the loud kids aren't the whole class. It's important not to ignore T. It's important to remember what I love about the juniors. NO seniors. Sadly. I worked with them two years, will wave at them in the hall. Not as much history with the juniors, just last year, a smattering the year before. First days don't tend to be stellar. I feel ignored, sidelined. I am not magical, why does it matter that I come back/came back? What does the new teacher think? She can't talk during prep since she'll be subbing for a teacher who is not at school 6th period. They'll pay her "comp time" - "I'm not sure what that is," she says. After school, creative writing club. After fifth period I'll find a place for us to meet.

One 11th grade boy wrote a poem for his recipe for a fiction stew. It contained a great line, and then a very poor line. He read it aloud to the group while part of the group hung over each other's desks and chatted, as though we weren't doing anything worthy of their attention. Are we doing something worthy of their attention? My reverence for fiction, for the word, for the possibilities reading and writing can bring comes up against the kid who says, "I do not write." He copied the Four Truths for Writers onto his folder. He doesn't do ORIGINAL writing. He doesn't care if he flunks, is daring me to be upset. "I don't care," I say, as I always say. At this school if I made it my mission to capture everyone who says "I won't!" I wouldn't have time for the kids who write. Which saddens me.

Favorite word lists? Forbidden word lists? No more sex or peyote or smoking bowl stories - that last cleverly disguised by the bowl being smoked containing "skunk". I didn't play acronymble with anyone. Let's do that with 10th grade. I taught them last spring.

There were hilariously imagined scenes in a few of the stories, and of course B.'s was deep, long and ended gracefully, though the ending was neither neat nor happy. So glad to give her space to write.

If I am true to teaching writing, I will love writing in public, I will stand up for good writing, and sing its praises, I will read my own writing with gusto even if kids don't have the manners to pay attention. If I am going to go into the classroom, I have to remember where I set my pen and my water bottle and who genuinely wants my attention. It is not my job to second guess whether my work is "good" - it is my job to do the work.

Road trip in rain, dark,
imposition of fog,
expulsion of breath,
inability to see increased
as grip on wheel.
No Kerouac, Jack Cassady,
just me in a yellow VW
hoping to pull in
to the La Quinta Inn
in Bend, Oregon.

---

White pelicans sighted
on Agency Lake, rain
has stopped, cumulous
billow above Campus Drug,
I sip a genuine latte
at Matteo's by OIT.

The man has left at last
who said, "what
they call child abuse, we
call discipline at my house,"
along with
his child who played
behind the half wall
by the table where I sit.

He invited his table companion
to Chiloquin to shoot guns
this weekend. Come on up!
Borrow my gun, or my wife's.

Train Mountain last night,
a fund raiser, where I rode
the little train, adults single
file on little padded seats
without sides - Cessna pilot
seats, they fold down
when not in use
which was nice
what with the rain.
Little towns and a full size
campground first come first
served where you can stay
all summer and volunteer
to work on the track and
the little towns in all scales,
the little deer and smaller
horses along the route,
the long tunnel we passed
through made from drain tiles.

The vegas nerve is called
"the wanderer" - its branches
wander all over the body.

Magpies this morning, two
sea gulls as I drove along
North Klamath Lake towards
town, a white egret in flight
with its ankles tight together
trailing behind.

I've sacked my stock of readers

and see my followers decline

am I in decline here on the fainting

couch, lumbering towards what?



Jets ply sky above me, I've finished

THE HELP, and who am I to tell

anybody how to live or what to give

a rip about?



Fall in love three times a day

my poetry advice book counsels.

I write that down, but don't

take that crap from nobody.



Nobody can tell me what to do,

not even me. Books lean

along my shelf and I've gotta

come to myself before I leave



To do what good I can through

poetry. My love for words.

My joy in jostling them to make

them sing so I'll take wing.


See that's the thing so easy

to forget. That all the time

the things I love are smack

in front of me.



--



!

Daily Crossword Puzzle Poem Draft for 8/14 on 8/17 in the Wallowas


Skate quickly over the soft spots
calculate often but smell the calla
edge your lawn and dream Egypt
believe Bach and Bartok, the basics
beset you, your dreams are knives
that skid or cut downhill like skis.
Identify skinks, forget the martins.
I think you forgot to count that lap.
In Renaissance we were beset by boils
the best of times for you Leona
Send your barbs aloft gentle angler
into this bone-cold stream. Drag
another river for the man, the van,
but he is somewhere dry, renamed.
Do not underestimate your demise
for I am bossy and not your son
Oh hon the fan blades pull me nicer
pass the ice and disregard the datum
it's a one or zero, not a two
and you are who I've gained.
Energy pulses, the egrets emit
nothing extraordinary, the oriole
does not live here, you are Aries
bow and all. Drop your shawl and call
your extraterrestrial minions.
---

A little bit garbled and odd, the above, as am I. Yesterday we drove from Pullman to Lewiston, Idaho, then up and up and then he stopped the car. I thought, "a lookout, yes!" Such a good idea, and I brought out my camera. He unhooked his bicycle from the rack, and rode the winding road to the bottom. And now we're in a coffee shop in Joseph, Oregon.

Yesterday we hiked up from Wallowa Lake - I led, I'd been here a month before, up the Joseph Trail, except I didn't take the right turn, and we hiked up and up, and the suspension bridge over the west fork of the Wallowa River did not materialize no matter how I willed it. We'd been walking more than two hours when I asked backpackers coming down the trail if the bridge was just ahead. No it wasn't, no matter how many details I singled out to inquire about. I so wanted Jim to see that bridge. The backpackers said there was a great lookout over the river about 35 meters ahead, so we went, and took pictures. We were planning to get up early this morning to hike up to stand on that suspension bridge, but when we woke up it was 8:35.

Daily Crossword Puzzle Draft for 8/9/10


This cloud with a black belly is not a liar
nor is the mechanism of the T-bar.

We got our fan mail at the flea market
the summer we went off the radar.

The sight of blood or is it beetroot
threw my steering wonky at the go carts

The answer to what ails you is a miter box
a half wine barrel full of bearded iris.

The lake is calm and then it roils
which spoils us when we should have reeled

We've healed and well-heeled study rim
behavior in Antarctica

Oh Spartacus your skirt is short and noisy
you grin like someone who could split the atom

when all we need is money for these cans.

The sky is hazy as if I've only my lazy eye
to see it, though both eyes are open, if
not attentive. Twenty miles uplake
the Rainbow Bridge fire is still burning,
the wind has gently turned so smoke
filters down like vague longing, like
insufficient desire, not the ravages
of fire. Our friends watched a cougar
lap at the lake between their house
and their garage. They say this has
changed them. Who has it changed
them? They are cautious already. Will
the dog never again be allowed out?
The apricots are gone, and the grapes
inadequately ripe. Tomatoes plump
in half wine barrels on the sunny side.
I nip the tips from basil crowns
that long to go bitter and to seed.

Poem with One Syllable Words
(except for the title)

"Scram!" I scream.
I mean, "come here."
I mean, "I love you."
I mean, "help!"

I don't know who I am
so I Google the blanket octopus
that unfurls its Batman cape
and nods its ungainly head
another sci fi brainy alien

My daughter met manatees
at the boathouse in Miami,
they backfloated, drank
from the hose, slow-bodied,
drowsy-witted, the big one's
back striped by the blade
of a speed boat.

Two robins fight or court
I don't know them
A third flies in
below a cloud shaped
like a fish. The sky
is whitest behind the hill.
A fishing boat shifts
on the lake.
Mist moves away
from brightness.
Another bird produces
a tweet that repeats
that seems out of its control.
The robin stutter stops
across the points of light
that tip the grass blades
walks a step
two foot hops
stops. Drops beak, misses.

The breeze rises,
the sun a whole ball
separate from the hill.
The robin hunkers, dips its yellow beak,
misses again. I do that too.
Catch and release, yes, but
miss and release too.

Old Crossword Puzzle Poetry Draft from 7/9/10

What define us are our acts
sitting in the shade with ades
or driving home in Larks
we stare into the night - there's Ursa
while elsewhere there's a crash in Ulster
and someone's found a shard of gneiss
under the refrigerator. How acidic
your ade, how tryingly
you shake shaggy head, so much ado
and you not even Kafka.
Oh sweet, oh entres nous
I left my change on Elm
this life this lemon not a test
what's best? Who knows? Toy
with blocks or check your lists
we try, we die, we break our necks
ah love ah life how genial
to watch the snake uncoil
to try or not to cope
to run like hell like Adam.
A baby's grin my alibi
your wisdom dusty as sage
and no ink in my pens.

--

Well trusty rusty that and on and on
we hanker more - what more lovely
than time and air in both my lungs?
And thus begun I wander willy nilly
cross this lit up screen - oh peanut, oh bean,
when you were green and all this world
our cloister - shucks kids, its so soon over
what more matterful than that my
days are full of you and sun beats down
and Mars grows daily closer.