Poems from our annual CPITS gathering, at Warner Spring Ranch, a truly magical place replete with hot pools and native California Palms, nestled at the foot of Mt. Palomar.
ANCESTOR TONGUE
—from Simon Ortíz's class
Conas tá tu. Mo anim Mairín
I am called Maureen, she of the sea,
Sometimes I am the Morrighan of the Battlefield
She who stood on the shoulders of CúChulainn
as he slumped tied to the
Lía Fail
to the Stone of Destiny
as darkness descended
behind the corneas of his eyes.
She, who became the enemy
when he spurned her love—
she was steadfast in death.
I am not little Mary, the mother of God
as the Jesuits were wont to say.
To be the great three-fold goddess
the raven, forever associated with death
has me worried
because I was given the owl nametag
no raven, but still the same messenger.
Why it worries me is because of what follows.
Sometimes I dream of things no one should see
but the witness is an afterthought.
They say it's the Second Sight
a gift from my mother's family.
They say that in dreams begins responsibility.
but my mother's craziness chased me toward sanity
and I ran from that responsibility.
I'm supposed to be writing a poem
going deep inthe the verbness of am and is-be.
Instead, I'm skittering on the surface of fíos
of what I know, knowledge stacked like facts
cords of wood to hold us against the winter
instead of an airy dance
of water skeeters on a glassy pond.
I'm skittering on the brink
of imagination into the precipice.
I have been the standing stone,
the Oghan writing on its edge
the raven, and the washer at the ford.
We wre uncertain of where we stand
the boundaries of self and will,
the anarchy of culture.
Ta me go maith. I learned some Irish at the knee.
I am the broken vessel, the carrier of a dead language.
I had to change my mother tongue in school
because Irish syntax didn't fit the American way.
We were like Simon Ortiz's Aco-ma
where the preposition does the work of language
the harbinger of direction and time.
Our mind works mysteriously, circuitously
and it remembers in spite of ourselves.
What is hidden, the hidden places
we all write it into our selves
our own way of being guided by the ancestral tongue.
Naming is a language event
that moment when you're presented to the sun, an Grian.
We write it into our selves, in stone.
We may have lost our language
but we have not lost ourselves.
We have not lost ourselves.
We have not lost ourselves.
We have not lost ourselves.
Hoh.
Maureen Hurley 9/7/2007 Warner Springs Ranch
NATURAL SELECTION
—from Maggie Anderson's class
Straddling a bridge of indecision
I face two paths, two beds of the same stream
one runs hot, the other is cold.
California Fan Palm is rooted deep into the fault
and grows as close as it can to the fire
where boiling water burbles out of the earth
while stinging nettles of the northern latitudes
lean into the perpetual shade on the cold bank
and remembers an age of ice and perpetual winter
the willow guards both sides of the bridge
but the datura of oblivion chooses
the wash of the desert wadi as its dream
Maybe I should seek its counsel or go mad
should I stay or go?
A decade or two and then what?
I test each stream with my feet
my left foot in the cool creek bed
the other dips into hot water
but the voices of both streams gurgle in unison
they offer no solace, no sage advice
nor do they drown the stinging words.
The moment of change is the only poem.
Maureen Hurley 9/7/2007 Warner Springs Ranch
NATURAL SELECTION, II
—from Maggie Anderson's class
Desert willows guard the footbridge to another world
with a cacophony of graygreen leaves
while the honey locust spreads
its ordered palmate structure in lacy patterns.
California Fan Palm is rooted deep into the faultline
and grows as close as it can to the fire
where boiling water burbles out of the earth
while stinging nettles of the northern latitudes
lean into the perpetual shade on the cold bank
and remember an age of ice and perpetual winter.
But the datura of oblivion chooses
the wash of the desert wadi as its dream.
Maybe I should seek its counsel or go mad.
Where am I today with one foot in each stream
I can't decide whether to stay or go
whether to write poetry or prose
Am I done with poetry or is it done with me?
I let the next thing to cross my path
guide me and offer instructions.
The first is a bluebird flitting after flies,
the other is a pileated woodpecker
jackhammering holes into the pulpwood
drilling deeper, do it again.
But the voices of both streams gurgle in unison
they offer no solace, no sage advice
nor do they drown the stinging words.
A red dragonfly bleeds against the thermal pool
algae plants itself in vermillion & verde
three cottonwood leaves float, sun yellow
a raft of two crow feathers eclipses them.
Murmur of voices in a room, a steady stream of words.
Fear of change keeps me rooted here.
The moment of change is the only poem.
Maggie says that exact moment of change
that moment when we're neither here nor there
that is where the poem lies.
Maureen Hurley 9/7/2007
Warner Springs Ranch
UNTITLED SOUND POEMS
-from Dan Levinson's class
knock, knock, anyone there?
In the alley, broken glass questions
the soles of my shoes
again and again
Willful destruction of a window
an eye of the wind
Someone lived here once
He sweeps the glass across the cement floor
with his shoe, cleaning up
centuries of sand and glass
I'm shattering the surface of what I know
skimming the depths of what I am
ascending to the teatime level of the noon whistle
Maureen Hurley 9/8/2007 Warner Springs Ranch
UNTITLED SOUND POEM, II
-from Dan Levinson's class
bowl of sound
the tubes warming up
electronic buzz
a TV after hours
Frankenstein bellying up to the bar
for another shot of juice
birds twittering
or an old radio
can't pull in the station
Hello? tap the mike, blow on it
then inanely ask if you can hear me
too torturous to tell what the message is
morse code written by mice
I'm searching for an old SOS on the upright Royal
a gumshoe ganglion of words
staccato of bullets
an air raid of words
end of a song
an old 78 record hissing in the grass
Maureen Hurley 9/8/2007 Warner Springs Ranch
SIMMER RITUAL
-from Joe Milosch’s class
Nestled at the foot of the Palomar mountains
the thermal pools at Warner Springs Ranch
ripple with myriad prisms. Refracted light
bends our legs into sevens and elevens.
Palm leaves clatter in the desert breeze
like a film projector at the end of a reel
the audience waits while the spliced leader
flashes crosses and numeric bulls-eyes: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5...
The Cupeños, Bing Crosby & the Duke
once soaked their weary bones here.
Joe asks us to write about a time when we were young.
I can't think of anything. I'm pushing 55, and I think
soon I'll be able to get into the movies cheap.
But the price of admission has more than tripled
since I was a kid. Yesterday I was the Baba, the baby.
Time is zooming by art the speed of regret.
I may have passed the half century mark,
but behind the long distance of these eyes,
behind this crepe thin skin, I am still young.
My hair is a raft of chestnut light
floating behind me like a horse's tail
and I'm remembering the ritual
of the first pool dip of the season.
Sometimes we'd sneak into the water
before the sun had done her job
as if to rush the coming of summer
and a glove of icy fear gripped our hearts.
We were left gasping for breath.
When I was young, I spent the entire season
swimming myself into aqua exhaustion
the healing plunge into a pool where pale bubbles
rose up to challenge the endless sky.
A crimson leaf floats in the pool.
Stains the retina.
For a moment time had stopped.
Maureen Hurley 9/9/2007
Warner Springs Ranch
UNTITLED
—from Kim Shuck's class
Walk into the red morning
set your intentions of the day
What is the difference between prayer and poem?
I have been fighting that religion since I was six.
Things to be said, that should be said
transforming the noun of self into the verb of being.
Honor the tongue
drinking deep from the stream
drinking both hot and cold
drinking the ancient artesian water
drinking fire from the earth
to get to the heart of things.
Words from the Cherokee:
this woman's soul has come to rest
on the edges of your body
Let it linger there a while.
Poems have a specific time of morning
Four things that need to be said.
You breathe a poem, you don't recite it.
Simon's Mai Lai May Lai, letting it out
letting the breath out.
Small summit reaching the sky
reaching, reaching, reaching the blue
the blue granite, holes in the rock, mortar and pestle
winnowing, winnowing, winnowing, winnowing on granite
buckwheat and artimesia
granite reaching its stubby fingers to the sky
mountain mother milking the sky
cloud milk in deep blue (thin spring milk)
hangliding buzzards and sky hawks circle
ravens gossiping in the cottonwoods
buckwheat fingers accusing the sky
cabbage moths sucking nectar from tiny flowers
beneath the desert sun, a spittling pine,
cooling rain of tree sap on the skin
two dragonflies the color of blood, knot the air, red, red.
The crow and raven clans have come to an understanding
they each stay on their side of the creek.
Maureen Hurley 9/9/2007 Warner Springs Ranch
