HUNTING STONES ON GRIZZLY PEAK

The odor of eucalyptus after first rain dazzles 

the senses with the memory of thirsty rocks,
small pieces quartz resurface on the fire road
like blind hail after the deluge, quiet stars 
dozing in red Franciscan mud.

I gather them up, not random shards of upheaval,
but the remains of fossils filled with quartz,
the unkempt story of seed clams and shells
still crawling out of the sea.

As I glimpse the bay from a limestone reef,  

I hold a hard beauty in my pockets.
There are more treasures to be found,
dark obsidian flakes also swim in my pockets.

Someone’s attempt at resurrecting the art 

of flint napping, a dark tide at my feet.

All this immeasurable bounty of the past 

teases me away from the 21st-century.

The spine of the drought is broken. 

The coinage in my pockets pulls me down. 

My pants are in danger of slipping off 

with the combined weight of rocks. 

I return those stones back to the earth, 

taste the pungent air, breathe in the mist 
with a sense of finally belonging 

to this landscape not of my own choosing.

8/9/23 Write On! Workshop with Terri Glass

Retro clothing

I read an article, Adventures in my Wardrobe, about how we all have gobs of clothes hiding out in our closet as if they were in a witness protection program (or is it a witless protection program)—clothes that we never wear, and yet we hold onto for dear life. Because, memory. 

The author, Anne-Marie Hoeve, decided go on an archaeological dig in the back of her closet, and daylight all those old clothes she never wears. Her experience with her old clothes was like opening up a time capsule. The paradigm shift of memory and nostalgia head-butting with time present, made for a lively tale. 

The memories Hoeve experienced while wearing old clothing made for an intriguing anthropological study, as the association of clothes and memory is profound, if not downright irrational at times.

Like the odor of violets, old clothes can invoke the memories of the dead. It’s like hearing old music again. Loving Spoonful’s Happy Together telescopes me back to my 2nd corridor locker at Drake High School. Every time. I like my men young and and my clothing old—I used to joke that I only wore clothing of the dead, so as to keep their memories alive. There’s more than a little truth to that.

Every few years I go through my really old clothes and wear them again, after an extended sabbatical, they seem like new again, so I’m hesitant to toss the old stuff out. I hate to part with my retro clothes. OK, so call them antique clothing. But they give me joy. That crazy OCD minimalist organizer and delclutterist guru who arranges books by color, Marie Kondo, would not approve.

Something I haven’t worn in five or ten years, is dragged out of the giveaway bag, and becomes a new favorite again. Especially with summer clothes. That old mirrored rayon top with the over-dyed embroidery from the $5 box at Tienda Ho on Telegraph Avenue in 1999 that hasn’t seen daylight in decades, suddenly became a new favorite during the heat wave, despite my cousin‘s dismissive sniffing.

Or a recent score of string pants from Savers totally matches that sparkly plaid Victoria’s Secret nightshirt dress and completes it—as if it’s been waiting all these years for the stars to align to this particular moment in time. Ok, so they’re too big. Maybe the black leggings are a better match. I look less like a plaid oversized Easter bunny terrorizing the neighborhood.

And the sea foam green cashmere poncho, a street find (some dead lady’s stuff), perfectly matches the new GV jeans I bought during an impulsive pre-COVID-19 moment after I had finally left my abusive partner of 20 years. I had stuffed them into the giveaway bag because the memory association was too painful. But the sweet cashmere poncho reclaimed them for me. You bet I will wear them now, come sweet May again.

AT UC BERKELEY (Why did Google flag this blog entry as a server error?)

AT UC BERKELEY

Young students surfing the standing waves
of buckled pavement
receive a momentary glimpses of knowledge.

Wind teases the leaves toward the ground.

If I were young, instead of an infantile 46,
always late for classes, and apparently late for middle age…

In less than a month I will be 47, nearer to 50.

Students mistake me for 30-something.
I guess I should be flattered,
though the accident left me a legacy
of gray strands of wisdom.

A negative badge in a youth culture.

A girl on a skateboard breaks the mold.

I would've done that if I had been born later.
Instead, I begin to notice the first signs:
this is how it begins; shifting over the drivers seat,
my stiffness slowing me down, imperceptibly at first,
soon it will increase, then escalate,
and though I shore up the ramparts of memory
with infrastructures of history, classic middle age
clashes with druidical sacrifice. I wonder, why bother

when I care so little. Late at night I contemplate
the image of my father's 38 caliber pistol
when nothing else will sustain me, it's a cold comfort.
But doubting both my sincerity and my conviction,
it remains buried in the file cabinet
in a cabin far from home.

11/99
added 9/17

Oakland, CA

BARKING UP THE WRONG TREE

BARKING UP THE WRONG TREE

Reina, a blind, dowager cat of 15,

who has learned to tell lies for more food

and has a paunch to prove her success,

ignores the catnip-stuffed mouse I bring her.

We can't tell her facts:

why it always rains outside each door

in the house at the same time, the dilemma

of eating tuna and the diminishing dolphin population,

or the effects of mercury poisoning.

Has it begun to manifest

its mad-hatterly ways in this idiot savant

well into second childhood?

Mornings, we find her upside down and drooling;

rubbing her whiskers and head ecstatically inside our shoes.

We make jokes about the narcotic effect of ripe shoes and laundry.

But when my new shoes are also

singled out for euphoric distinction,

I realize, slowly, how our conclusions are hampered

by our own anthropomorphic limitations.

It becomes clear, her need for scenting—

In cat terms, as we walk our daily rounds,

our shoes mark the outer boundaries of her territory.

Who'd have credited this blind old cat

with enough foresight to keep tabs on her realm—

She, who had us barking up the wrong tree all along?

10/15/1988  first draft june?
Berkeley

1995 CQ #22 California Quarterly
1991Poet Magazine, Fall issue
1990 Poetry USA
         Sparrow Grass
1989 Green Fuse
         A Night Full of Doves
         Outerbridge