THIRD EVACUATION IS A CHARM

THIRD EVACUATION IS A CHARM

After weeks of scanning photos 

and poems resurrected from the past, 

revisiting old ghosts, and tropes, 

from a time when poetry was new, 

remembering when we sat at the feet 

of Diane Di Prima at the old Zen Center on Fell Street, 

and we slid into the slick canyons of words, 

while Loba paced the streets. She said the writer’s life

is a balancing act, a juggling of disparate entities.

Frances tags me to write something, but I am lost

in the technical jungle of negatives and proofs,

and the way silver bromide on film outfoxes the lens,

chopping off the hands of the dead poets, Kizer,

McClure, Rexroth, a weird sacrilege of sorts.

I think of poor Victor Jarra in the stadium,

when they cut off his hands, he sang his poems to la gente.

The price paid. All I can think of now 

is how to save the film archives of the poets

before the wildfire climbs the next ridge.

The past is an albatros around my neck.

As the ashes fell like snow, we learned new words: 

ember fire, and we stomped on the burning souls of trees.

I cannot find the exact right words to say anything.

I keep thinking I should write something profound

but the blank page just snarls and drools.

Crouches, slinks off into the night,

eyes burning like coals.

10/27/20

rev. slightly 10/21