Ghost Buffalo

Last week my husband and I discovered cat tracks out in the wild. We were on the Uncompagre Plateau. The tracks were big. Today, on the Glade, we had another kind of glimpse: a sudden rustling, and the brief sight of the backs of large yellow paws, disappearing in the long grass. On towards evening, on towards morning. In the sense that a poem alters consciousness, it is indeed a spell. But in another sense, it is quite the opposite of a spell. A poem can alter consciousness back to its natural state, prior to patterning. In this way, it is a spell-breaker. (Kim Rosen) Real security is not only being able to tolerate mystery, complexity, ambiguity, but hungering for them and only trusting a situation where they are present. (Eve Ensler) A day of sitting still, and many sparrows taking flight. The Zuni woman carried on in long vowels of dust and light.

A mini review of my Moses poem appears here: http://copia.posterous.com/ mothers-burning-breast A tiny poem of mine with a large title ("The Art of Listening isn't Hard to Master") has been published in the current Light Quarterly.  http://lightquarterly.org/ lightabout.html I'll be teaching a workshop at a festival in Carbondale March 25: Also, a featured writer gig at The Nervous Breakdown upcoming. 

Such an interesting word, matter. No matter what we do we seem to be awfully concerned with matter. Can Poetry Matte r, asks Mr Gioia. Says the theosophist: The problem with modern scientific thought is that it assumes and insists life begins with matter. Subject matter. Grey matter. Dark matter. Strange matter. Mind over matter. I suppose what we like about matter is that it can be measured. Or can it ? What’s the matte r, we say to one another. As a matter of fact ! Matter, matter, matter, she muttered. A common way of defining matter is 'anything that has mass and occupies volume.' In practice however there is no single correct scientific meaning of "matter," as different fields use the term in different and sometimes incompatible ways. - No matter where you go, there you are , says Confucius. It’s a matter of life and death, we say.

Pastel I long to fade from action into stupefaction, slipping through the cracks that restless fullness lacks. I can no longer choose between primary hues. I crave complete collapse into pastel gaps. In torn mint and mallows, by terracotta shallows, where the gnat’s lavender eye kindles heat in a sigh; on a vanishing palette, where black is blind, and white is mute— lay me on my back, in brown mud and gray suit.