Edgar Lee Masters

"I tramped through the country
To get the feeling
That I was not a separate thing from the Earth.
I used to lose myself
By lying with eyes half-open in the woods.
Sometimes I talked with the animals..."

Also:
"I have studied many times
The marble which was chiseled for me—
A boat with a furled sail at rest in a harbor.
In truth it pictures not my destination
But my life.
For love was offered me and I shrank from its disillusionment;
Sorrow knocked at my door, but I was afraid;
Ambition called to me, but I dreaded the chances.
Yet all the while I hungered for meaning in my life.
And now I know that we must lift the sail
And catch the winds of destiny
Wherever they drive the boat.
To put meaning in one’s life may end in madness,
But life without meaning is the torture
Of restlessness and vague desire—
It is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid."

Ilsanjo

Only one star hung in the sky then,
just a grain of salt in the scope of his vision,
and the moon hung waxing over the basin
where, naked, he swam once more
On his back, the concavity of the earth
seemed to press down around him
He could see the bats overhead
feasting on winged insects
The distant call of a great horned owl
careening across the surface of the water
The goings about of unidentified mammals
- one could hear their paws on the shore
He just swam there naked as them,
alone in his goose-bumped skin,
dusk closing in around Ilsanjo's waters
And he wanted for nothing

Reluctant Raven

Oh yes, I know
reluctant raven
you're so
flighty

Oh yes, I hear
shouting voices,
warn from
above

But don't you know
I ignore them
because I long to feel
your plush down

And don't you hear
so tenderly
my whispers meaning well
They're honest

Yes, I see you are young
not knowing how to fly
Surely I can do no better
but I'm willing to try
Just to try

Yes, I feel, feathered one
it's frightening to know,
whether we will plummet or soar
When right I'll let you go
Let you go

One Hundred Pounds

I recall the last time now
It came all at once to me,
as from an electric shock
My feet kicked upward
not reeling, but as pistons
intent to decapitate
I remember one heel
landing flush across the jaw
and the dead weight
He was separated then
- his body from his mind
One rendered useless,
and the other
on unfamiliar substrate
One where every strength,
every blatant advantage,
was my own
The one hundred pounds,
that profound disparity,
meant nothing now
And he knew

Obscene Embyro/Mossen Womb

He used his fingers only
to displace the earth
Pulling at sprawling roots, and
discarding their intentions
Their tendrils hung down
and touched his naked back
painting streaks across
his body as he moved
His forearms and elbows
aching and mud-caked,
a wreath of manzanita
entangled in his ashen hair,
and nostrils flaring before
the smell of soil and leaves
He dug a cavity there,
just enough to coil in,
and lined it with moss
Invertebrates roiled out
clambering for the light,
while groundwater dripped
freckling his skin with mud
He lay there unmoving,
an obscene embryo
in a mossen womb,
making no sound

Grandfather

His grandfather's face was not the same. It had been years, but they were buffered by a placid existence. It had weathered under the burden of internal oils seeping through in expressions unintended. One might recall that involuntary (embarrassing) quivering in the jaw as you seek a voice in the rightful place of sobs.

The iron oxidized.
The silver tarnished.

They sat on the tracks during the grandson's break from work and drank coffee as old friends might. These days the boy hadn't much time aside from those long shifts, and those he did were accounted for in days advance.

The dregs dribbled from a crease in a paper cup.

That rare silence only seen in times of death. It was all. He said it didn't matter much anymore, regarding that all would die alone. He said, "When the time comes, you'd better be your own."

A Real Why

She leaves them
all the same
Bleedin' heart;
an apology
I'd tell her now,
if I possessed the sway
a blink or bat of an eye
(that wincing smile),
she knows the one,
it's no response for
a thousand yard stare
And she can't even offer
a real why