Benjamin Green

Over Cat Mesa
 
No leaves fell that autumn.
An early freeze turned the cottonwoods
cardboard box brown,
a drab shingling that lingered
to the winds of spring.
November limped on
white frost, with ice
in the shadows. Clattering
brown leaves reflected
in the still creek, both frozen
on the edges.
 
One afternoon in January
drapes of cloud fell into the canyon.
Soft rain, no wind--
I heard a strange click and patter
on the brown leaves--
then snow in the hours of small shadow--
from mist that clung
to canyon rock.
The moon rose through
a tear of cloud
over Cat Mesa.



Settling
 
The smoke from the woodstove
Does not rise
But coils and snakes
Around the house and
Under the junipers--
Slow-dancing with
Canyon-filling clouds.
 
When mist saturates the air
Even the cottonwoods disappear.
Ravens chortle;
The fog turns to rain.
 
Power’s down,
And, soon, it turns night-black.
The old man is alone
In the darkened, empty
Neighborhood.
 
Hearing aids still in, on,
He listens to the mice
In the walls,
The pelting rain--
 
He cannot sleep.
The cold settles
And snow drifts
Through ponderosas.
 
With no light to read by
He thinks how literature
Convinces that characters
Know who they are--
Where they come from, what they do,
Where they go--
And, often, why--
All through images,
When all he knows, really, remain guesses.
 
Suddenly, he thinks of
The immeasurable distance
From a trout
To himself--
Do we live in the same world?
What, after all, do I hold
In my hands
When I hold a trout?
 
Only guesses, he thinks, no images:
Relationships describing
Staining light, emotions, fields
Of push and pull,
The pathways of thought,
The vectors of movement
In space and time.
 
What is love to a trout!
The sight of bark-bit
Covered caddis flies
On the river-bottom stones?
The green tent of
Watercress shelter?
 
And it does not mean anything,
Or does it?
 
Just a trout, another guess,
Not an image--
Not a symbol or metaphor
Or simile--
 
Not the words
But the thing itself.
 
Why do I allow
What I settle for
To fill the world?
 
 

Desert

I see what the spirit
made

one thing at a time--

    caprock
    pinyon
    cholla
    red dirt--

and, in looking,
show what I am
made of.

Even the clouds,
building over the mesa,
look newly created

and the eight-minute old
light from
the dipping star

caresses earth;

the wind mumbles in

    rock
    tree
    cactus
    soil--

teasingly cold:

the work of a palpable god

seen

and

felt.

Benjamin Green is the author of eleven books including The Sound of Fish Dreaming (Bellowing Ark Press, 1996) and the upcoming Old Man Looking through a Window at Night (Main Street Rag) and His Only Merit (Finishing Line Press). At the age of sixty-eight, he hopes his new work articulates a mature vision of the world and does so with some integrity. He resides in Jemez Springs, New Mexico.