Clarity: 4 AM

4am – NAP’s Birthday

Bruce V. Baron, 1/30/08

You seek hands.

For touch beneath furry chin

you'll tail-whip face while purr-charging heart,

seeking soft strokes beneath painted smiles.

Pushing defecating seat away from face,

you meow displeasure,

then leap at hiding hand beneath pillow,

indignantly attacking desire.

My needs are not an issue.

Lifting hand from warmth of beckoning, feathered sleep,

I lift you to chest

stroking diligently,

knowing happiness means one less scratch –

knowing happiness is,

at least,

one more stroke of my hands.

Bruce

seeker, 1/30/08

Worthiness

I recently discovered that I have worth.

Great worth!

It's really a great and necessary discovery, since without it, I had nothing to give to others.

Worthlessness means one can only take.

Being worthy also means that I now have (and always, unknowingly, had) a counter-balance to that which makes me different from other animals --- the conceptual knowledge of death!

That's not to say that Jack and Sam (my ex-girlfriend's dogs) aren't worthy in their own right --- anyone who has animal friends can attest to that!

No. Sometime around 3, or 4, or 5 years of age, we get the sense of "I-ness", of being distinct from all around us. This means we also get the sense of "non I-ness", of the possibility of ending! Maybe Mom closes the lights and shuts the door to our bedroom, and we first have that thought: "Is this what death is like?", and then maybe we have the next thought: "But, what if I can't even THINK this thought after I die?".

Well, that's the most frightening thought of all, and we have our first reaction to death ---

We throw the blanket over our heads. We turn on the light. We look for the monster under our bed.

We've discovered that monster!

Death.

And from that point on, we live our lives IN REACTION TO THE WAY WE VIEW DEATH because we are the animal that KNOWS we're going to die.

And we don't want to.

So, we have religion, a wonderful thing, because it answers that question "What happens after we die?"

Or we jump out of airplanes, or go to New Zealand to dare death.

Or we stay in our homes and wear masks and gloves.

Or we hide from thoughts, and relationships, and feelings.

Or we write poetry, books, anything that will outlast us, yet be us.

Or we start wars, and become history.

Lots of things...

Without worthiness, how scary would living be? Or depressing.

My worthiness will outlive me!

Let me give it to you!

They Were Soft and Yielding

They were soft and yielding,
the plastic party favor swords
my mom used to stick into those little
hot dogs - smokies;
swords my cousin Mike and I
would do Errol Flynn tabletop fights with —
when we were young and he was still
alive.

But this time they were natural,
and blood tinged, and Sam
was pawing at them with
paw pin cushions, pawing
at his mouth, stuck like a voodoo dog
by a malevolent Teddy Bear Cholla.

And Patty and I were battling
with the spirit of pain, whirling
with a dust devil while pulling
hooks from flapping dogfish gills,
wary of ivory points as
bloody swords and
growls and
winded, spirit-filled grass -
rippling in a desert sea of hidden
bites - unseen menaces
that I refuse to see so often,
as you so know,

as all played forth this late morning hike
through and to the green hazed,
Saguaro pricked, Cholla fielded McDowell’s,
a hike taken to explore outer and inner nows,
in preparation for your new year,
and for your sister, who’s now to be less of a we,
yet still more than an I.

While we trudged along a gritty sand and stone-filled path,
collared by green growth intruding more than
ever upon a usually rain starved cracked earth
terra scape,
trudging into washes not long from
loose stones and trip rock, yet now
wired by various grasses and the occasional
Desert Primrose, yellow greeters of the sunrise,
or Crinkle Mats, pale lavender forget-me-nots
funneling a place among stone,
squatting for an advantageous moment
after the torrent of an every seven year
soaking, and

while we trudged along this path
towards mountains ahead, guarded atop
by Saguaro sentries, long-time tall manned
guards, budding arms upon one hundred years
maturity, embracing hurts from birds pecking
a hole, grrring at the world, then
flying off to nest in last year’s alerted hurt,
giving way to the krr-krr-krr or
cheh-cheh-cheh of a Cactus Wren,
embracing songs of a wren in house,
looking out upon two dogs,
Jack - guarding the path, and
Sam - bounding his body -
without regard or sin,
laughing in the sun,
waiting for no one, and

while we trudged,
we spoke in tune
to the cooing of morning doves,
to the whistling of wings in flight,
to the chattering of a
red-throated, broad-tailed, backward flying
Tinkerbell of a bird, and

while we spoke,
cocooned by enveloping green
at our sides,
cocooned by Paloverde trees,
with green light-breathing bark, and
evergreen Ironwoods, a heavy, tinder friendly
tree that procreates by having its seed eaten
by nuzzling deer, passing through to
newly fertilized desert soil,
we passed around our conversation,
nuzzled our conversation,
among the ghosts of marriage
and the ghosts of parents,
the ghosts of the favored and the rejected,
and the stare of the almost ageless
guardians of the McDowells.

Sam is a rusty red patchwork dog,
a leaper, a launcher, of a tireless bacchanal
spirit, and of an utterly oblivious
tilt towards tending to the now,
while Jack is as black and white as his coat,
a mercenary lover and a keeper of the path,
a desirer of the fulfillment of
his palate.

Sam bounded on, Jack stayed between,
looking beyond and behind,
and when hikers approached, the occasional
biker bouncing rubber on rock,
I thought of you, whistled and called,
placed leash and tidbits,
guided Jack from men and Sam from beasts,
since Jack would snap and Sam would leap
and you would see liability.

I thought of you, as Patty spoke of
painful division, of control without control,
of the ghost of your father and the
division of virgins and sluts, the ones
you marry and ones you don’t,
and shouldn’t be ---
the ones in the closet,
and I heard him speak in commands
and I saw your mother following rule
and I saw your sister’s blame and shame
and I saw her fear of you.

I also saw my cousin, Mike,
laying in his hospital bed,
and I viewed a crooked lonely tooth
standing up from his lower jaw,
solitary,
and with all ivory cut down,
hair burned off, ravaged by cure,
skin taut and pale and cratered by
incessant scratching, I
sat on his bed, as far from him
as ever, and listened to him tell me that
he would decide when he would die;
he would not die before.

Yet I saw my brother dying
a vegetable death,
and my mom,
in a sleeping pill funk,
and I saw myself running these desert trails,
on edge of light and dark,
wet and dry,
wondering what I have forgotten,
wondering why I’m so confused.

Your mother spoke to me from a field
of Golden Poppies, the type that open
only in full sunlight, filling a sea
of mountainside after a rain,
and she told me her hopes for you,
and she moaned them in the wind,
like Sam moans for his morning run.

I sometimes feel your answering moan,
and felt it shiver in Patty’s voice
when she spoke of the past,
as we passed a cluster of Organ Pipe Cacti,
framed by purple Lupine, crossed by
Chain-Fruit Cholla, giving prayer
to an inner tune.

I sometimes feel your answering moan,
when you run desert trails,
exercising the dogs, brushing the dogs,
protecting them from spirits in the grasses,
on the side, the front, the rear -
from what cannot be seen -
perhaps coyotes emerging from their hidden lair,
perhaps a jumping cholla,
or a snag-toothed javelina -

Your mother spoke to me
through the mountainside winds,
as we passed a melon batch of Little Leaf Globe Mallow,
dainty, five-petaled like a tiny five-fingered, cupped
hand, and she told me how smart you are,
how quick and how filled with light,
and I saw an older sister’s smoldering look
at who you could be,
but I saw the smolder turn,
and the warmth of the fire
danced a melon glow in your mother’s eyes.

So we trudged and spoke,
Patty and I, along the side of the McDowells,
swinging our feet around the saddle
to the valley beyond,
a valley of Teddy-Bear Chollas
glistening their spikes in the sun,
and Sam ran joyfully,
and Jack shifted back,
and bounding out of a field of Chollas,
a dirt-devil spun on the path,
throwing blood and spit and pain
in the air,
and Jack drifted back to be leashed,
and I drifted out to the bloodied paws
of my unleashed spirit, and did my best
to pull those backward facing barbs
from out of Sam’s soul,
to fulfill his trust and
your eyes upon me.

I don’t know what I’ve forgotten,
as I’ve hiked this desert trail,
nor what I’ll not see from here ---
but I see mountains, with their
bluish-green stubble, their Saguaro sentries,
their wash paths and untrod breasts,
and I hear your voice and, within me,
I see your eyes,
feel your moan, smell your breath,
and hear your ghosts —

The wind blows through desert spines,
the rain washes desert blood.
On edge of light and dark,
wet and dry,
I’d like to hold your hand
among the spirits of the grasses,
and climb on, unconfused.

Bruce V. Baron
Seeker
21 March 2005

The Rapids of my Rafted Heart

I sometimes sit on a rock
covered by green moss, alive still,
leaving a trail on the seat of my shorts,
(not that I care)
as I hike through the Arizona
dry landed terra scape,
baking my soul,
making it palatable.

While on that rock I’ve seen
a river’s trickle,
left by a river
that once was the sky to my rock,
and I, sitting here, would be drowned
by that wet,
counting the bubbles from my mouth
hurrying upward from my dazed surprise.

I imagine I could pop up and out
with those bubbles,
pop up and out, covered with a glistening
and swimming coat of dancing river,
shaking my grey head and clearing my eyes
to fill them again with
limestone canyon walls arching overhead,
cupping the shrieks of hawks.

I’d then emerge upon this very mossy perch,
and listen to those very shrieks,
and watch the sky dance
of those enraptured hawks,
enwrapped in river sky currents,
filling their spans with canyon wall gusts,
and climbing and swirling and diving and climbing again.

I imagine
I would sit here and watch the trickled water
finger her way to my feet, swirling and rising,
up my ankles,
soaking my boots,
climbing my calves,
wetting my shorts.

And as I’d sit here upon this partially
living perch, surrounded by sandstone echoes,
the river would lap a dance, swirling whitely
upon wet fudgy rock,
twisting seductively with glistening water fingers
touching the air with leaping snaps
that would fall upon my lap
and face and neck,
arching lightly and catching light
and drenching my love,
pursing her watery lips as if to kiss,
then glancing down to nuzzle my waist
and my cheeks
and my thighs.

I sometimes think my stolid green friend,
who lets me sit upon his head,
borrowing his sun for a moment,
testing his unlimited patience to soak up life,
I sometimes think he winks at my bottom
when I get up to leave, while I
glance at the river trickle to see,
not the slowdown of
a droughted summer,
but,
the rapids of my rafted heart.

Bruce V. Baron
Seeker
December 25, 2004

The View

Trusting love to stern, examining glances,
as with a concentrated glass’s view ---
glares looking through questions,
dissolving answers,
piecing with burning sight,
smoking with swirling puffs,
singeing desire’s yearning,
making love a sooty, mooted residue
left by glares’ searing defensive
view---

Why,

loving despite these steeping glances, like
hoping to stretch on an ocean’s shore
composed without beach,
but with craggy, lichen blackened,
rock-filled juttings,
cutting the salty sky,
welcoming white gull shit ---

with cracked empty shells,
decaying smells,
broken, abandoned fishing rods
placed
in nowhere
holes ---

with bent over, breath-starved beer cans,
cigarette butts molded with gnats buzzing
possession orbits, silently,
in heated, shivering, salty air ---

and with the slimy residue of
hungry teeth that
grappled to wrench life from another
world’s
unseen possibilities ---

Why,

Loving despite these searing glances,
looking despite these glaring, withering stares
for somewhere to lay a
blanket,
and be soothed by the comfort of a wholly enveloping
sheet of smoldering
red faced, skin-dissolving heat,

standing under the sun
of discomforting examination,
one could always sigh, and wipe the brow
of singe-filled sweat,
and know ---

within the swelter,
beyond the shore, the glare, the points and counterpoints,
the edge of jagged rocks and pieced sky,
there lay beyond
a promise, the view ---

of swells and mist,
of moist spray and energy,
of life yet untouched.

Why,

while standing under the sun
of discomforting examination,
I know,
always, at worst,
there’s always
the view.

Bruce V. Baron
Seeker
7/9/06

Clarity

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

4 AM

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Jack and Sam

Worthiness

McDowell Mountains

They Were Soft and Yielding

The Rapids of my Rafted Heart

Grand Canyon

The View

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Sam

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