Caja Del Rio

1.

The wind picks up.   Encased in a tent, I'm attached to a kite

about to take flight,

and tonight I'm thankful for plastic.

The rain fly strains at the sown straps, tent stakes, and plastic snaps,

and I, tucked inside, watch the walls bend and  buckle,

then snap back in place.

Dry, I peek out the transparent screen knowing the low clouds

reflecting the city lights of Santa Fe,

make the plateau a dull gray as a smattering of raindrops fall.

In the morning, green grass, white cactus flower,

Indian Paintbrush, brown volcanic rock,

and two unknown peaks, bathed in morning light, frame us as we pack up.

The wind picks up.  On my bike, I'm attached to my bike pedals by shoes,

and my legs push at the pedals

and today I'm thankful for muscle.

2.

All the guidebooks suggested I might see horses,

but we don't and find our way back to the road

and set out towards our car.  

How much personal space must a cow need? 

Clearly timid and afraid, they run, never away or across the road and up,

but together they run in the same direction that we travel

Separated from others by a barbed wire fence,

two calves run away from us and along the fence with the others

on the other side.

They always run, and at times,

the calf has to skirt too close as the fence line and road converge

and it panics, skips ahead even faster causing the others to full on sprint as well.

Finally, they somehow squeak through the fence and find themselves with the others.

I can’t find a break in the fence

and wonder how they suddenly crossed?

What process did it go through to go through the fence?

To decide that enough was enough?

To suddenly find themselves with a fence behind instead of always in front?

Are there fences that I run along?

Are there fences that move on without a break

that I can just walk through?

3.

For 10 years we ran along the fence

and never looked for a break

and now we see the family that may never be ours.

Science has its limits.

No more clomid,

the hysterosalpingogram was enough to say stop. 

In a room, with diagrams and machines,

all the plumbing's in place and the data confirms what we know.

Time is a calf running out.  Life is a series of fences.

La Palabra: the Word is Woman

Backstage, I stepped between Jive Poetic and a woman.

Jive, a very tall, svelte black man, was upset and letting her know.

She , being Texan, didn't take to kindly to a black man stepping up on her.

But this is not a poem about race relations.

No, this is a poem ducks issues about race,
weaves around gender relations,
even blocks issues of regional pride and
jabs at my body
in constant flow.

This body seems a little different every day,

and as I watch the slow addition of gray hair crawl across my chest,

I know I'm not the same person, mentally, emotionally, or physically

as I was at eighteen.

So, it was with a huge degree of skepticism

that when my doctor suggested I try

and get back to the weight I was when I graduated from high school,

I queried, "Really?"

He cited some statistic about how most people are fully developed at eighteen

and their weight then is ideal.

My body has never been a statistic,

and I wasn't one at eighteen.

At eighteen, I was at the height I am now,

but weighed about 40 pounds less.

Yes, in the almost thirty years since I graduated,

I've added 40 pounds, about one and a third pound a year.

But most of that weight was added in my 30s,

when my weight would rocket up during late fall and winter,

then drop as spring turned into summer.

As my 40s approached, it no longer dropped,

and my weight hovered at where it is right now.

So in a sense, my weight, now, is not in constant flow,

but the hair that covers my chest keeps crawling,

such that I no longer have a cute line down the middle of my chest

but a mat, a carpet,

that seems to spread out like some slowly evolving inverted bowl and doily spider web,

and hairs that would range from brown to red,

now contain a smattering of gray as well.

I don't think I'm a big man,

yet I often chide my lover when she cooks to double the recipe

because the measurements don't seem to fill this beast of a machine

for more than just a little bit.

I find myself eating two meals to her one,

and sneaking away to recharge.

I'm not starving but have the appetite for more, always more.

So when Jive looked down on me, I think

he, in his anger, might've thought,

If this guy really puts his weight into some blow,

it's gonna hurt,

and he stepped back,

took a deep breath

and used his words not his body.

What's Your Story

I don't question where the muse goes,

the unbridled, quick reflex that leads me to pick out books on a bookshelf,

the random internet post that leads me to an article,

a list of tracks I should be listening to,

so when I stumbled upon your name on a list,

I thought I'd give it a go.

The "Jezebel" of Jazz,

you bucked trends by not singing in an evening dress,

preferring skirt and band jacket

to place you squarely in the band

instead of in front of it.

The wikipedia entry says

through a botched tonsillectomy

it left you without a uvula

Thus you created a percussive, short note style

because you couldn't hold long phrases or use vibrato.

So surprised that I'm not hearing

"I'm going mad for a pad," filtering out through some weird internet commercial for Apple,

but, hey, maybe they're not as hep as I think I am.

Jump jiving Jezebel, you join Kenton, Goodman, Krupman, Herman,

you loved pot,

and moved on to harder stuff

that surprisingly didn't claim your life,

but spent months in jails

and talked candidly about your usage, your struggles with "the life."

So Morning Glory, what's your story?