Muddy Prints, Water Shine

 

Muddy Prints, 

Water Shine

Carol Peters

Hakalau Hawaii

2008

Kayaking Folly Creek

I want to turtle along,

slide my kayak into a tidal creek,

flare the white paddle into green water

and skim between the tips of grasses, 

swing the pointed bow around a bend

to see the sun rise on the first of November,

the wind blow up across land and water, 

an S-shaped channel of shine bearing 

shallows here, narrows there, 

dawdle without a map to a sandbar 

where gulls and hooded mergansers,

cormorants, willets, and pipers

gather to sleep or dry their wings or

balance on one leg, hop from time to time,

not feeding but alert to possibility.

Philomel

Before she learns mourning

a girl discovers black horses,

black bees, a blossom’s groin,

grackles and sunflower seeds.

A swollen moon, wafer-thin,

rises in a milk-blue sky.

The nature of water is to run.

Grass roots in mud.

The wafer forced between her lips

clings to the roof of her mouth

where she can’t taste

or say, at first, what happened.

Collared doves settle and gasp

while a nightingale learns singing.

A Dog’s Fiddle

A moon is waning above the field,

crushing the features of the face

or scrubbing them, to a desiccating gradient —

a finish — frayed, narrowed, riddled, rued 

— all disappear for orbital reasons,

the cycling round of dark and light,

green flash and restitution — the vagabond spoon,

the brindle cow, the dream-tipped sea.

Opening

The child first sees his great-grandmother 

hunched in a kitchen chair, her head balding, 

a black patch covering one eye.

She turns toward him, opens the other eye

and makes a sound like a bird whistling.

At dinnertime she wears black sunglasses,

drags a spoon across a plate without looking,

raises the mush to her cheek where the food spills

and makes her laugh — a high bleating sound —

until everyone at the table is laughing.

After he brushes his teeth he stands at her chair 

for the one eye to open out of the lizard skin

and he kisses her cheek and hears a sound 

from her mouth like rocks making a landslide.

Along the Shore of Lake Pinewild

Fish fan in the man's shadow.

He squats and huffs

at the white geese 

hissing.

The stone in his shoe

is evidence.

A gander paddlewheels

on jeweled legs.

Old English Game Bantam

Strut the yard, cock, jut your head,

sway your bruiser’s body, snub

my fingers (wanting to trail your wingspread,

slalom your short back’s slope).

Parade, vainglorious red-scalloped one,

gold and black emperor of pullets,

the arch plume of your high-swept tail,

your dove-hued ruffles hiding secrets.

Tango toward me, Romeo, elongate your nape,

let my hands cup your belly,

graze the length of your birdscape.

Roll up your eyelids,

rock on toothpick pins, neck slack and beak unslung —

daft bird! You’re dazzled by a fool’s attention.

Lesson

I asked for a photo of fetuses

inside the uterus

of the pig you shot.

A rabbit uterus is shaped like a Y,

pink ribbons that rinse from the body’s trough

along with the rest of the workings.

Inside an old breeder, 

knots along the Y-arms 

record the history of fetuses.

Nose to tail, first one, then the next 

slack kit pulses through Y-stem to air;

the doe bites the cord, licks the ribcage

to kickstart breath. I’ve stroked spasm

into lungs for a kit that needed it.

Those not quite piglets you tossed

to compost’s stink and flies, 

I wanted to trace the shape (pear

or Y), to measure the heat 

and ebb of colors, to slow

the pace of their hearts leaving.

The Scent of Skunk

gasp and sweetness

atmosphere a proof

of time passing

air displaced

by what bristles at

sprays

let the owl

swoop down

barred wings batter

what passes

gasp and sweetness

we breathe

Bovine

Ireland is green

and patterned with cows —

milk and beef,

handled and brindled.

Behind the cows

stand churners,

bottlers, stunners,

butchers, chefs.

I admire, I adore the cows.

A lady from Wisconsin complains,

"Why does she keep on saying cow? 

She’s not a child."

Hawk Watch

The fog that shrouds Pilot Mountain

dims our chance to see hawks kettle,

so we hike around Big Pinnacle on trails

where brown signs mark beginnings

and red-lettered signs suggest

the possibilities of injury or death.

Trails bracketed by rail fence

descend by steps of orange stone

to sandy windings, rocky ground

where twigs extend from pitch,

where long-haired caterpillars inch

across the leaves of laurel, and where webs

the shape of shallow sacks hang down

from water-spangled threads.

Sudden gusts shake drops from trees — 

chestnut, oak, persimmon.

Rainbow lichens cover quartzite,

a towering dome, 

climbing the rocks is forbidden

while ravens nest.

Red, white, yellow mushrooms

speckle the forest floor,

fungus grows in staggered layers

(childishly stacked plates).

When the fog begins to lift

we climb to stand for hours

amid the whirling swifts and monarch flutter.

Vultures — turkey and black — 

converge and circle

gnarled and blasted trees.

Through glasses we spy warblers

in a leafy tangle — tseeta tseeta rising 

from ribbed, spotted, pure throats.

Finally the heavens clear.

One by one the broad-winged hawks — 

white stripes on their tails,

black bands on their wings — 

remind us of what we may mourn

as they soar out of the north

toward winter.

Hitchhiker

The hermit crab 

is wearing 

a snail’s shell.

Articulate

legs flank

the pincers,

antennae weaving,

eye stalks,

domed medallion.

A pen forages

inside the shell,

frees a tail

that coils

around the ballpoint tip

— is inked.

Emptied shell.

Spilled being.

A Natural History of Balloons

Flown scraps,

foiled swells,

so much sampled

tide-scrim. This was

once a bright

clown singing

to a child ducking

away.

Kilauea

Fresh lava creeps, wrinkling

through rockpiles and hapu fern,

past purple backs of hands,

tree frogs smaller than thumbs.

Long nights are fractured

with screaming.

Behind the healer's house

a yellow schoolbus, weed-festooned,

bumpered to a tanker-truck.

Pink plumes of cane drop seed

on stainless steel. She places

her hands on flesh's clamor — 

one touch erases,

another creates.

Lake Sunset

A Canada goose

feels its double unfold;

gray wings burn gold.

A cloud camel

inverts to ice cream cones

strung from ribbons.

Gusts high and low

remodel a range of dunes

into orange begging bowls and then

blues dim,

mirrors unsilver,

and the goose swims alone.

Spider Strand

In a single night

a garden spider flings her web

across our drive, from neat hedge 

to the gutter above the garage. 

We step outside 

to find her blazoned against the orb. 

Mike moves to ground her.

Eight legs in barber stripes

climb a strand, then hesitate — 

she seems to measure us. 

“Stop,” I say.

I hold Mike’s arm. I spin him around 

to the orb of sun blazing. 

Our spider rides her silk

back to the gutter, steadily reels it back

into the spinnerets 

she spun an evening from.

Two Hungers

A rabbit bounds into the yard,

stops at the bed of gloriosa

dimming to copper.

It lowers its head for a leaf

then sits tall while chewing,

green hanging from its mouth,

cheeks working ’til the leaf is gone.

One leaf after another,

the daisy stems tremble

as leaves are torn away.

We spread our toast with peach

and watch ’til we are full.

The Arms of Three Men

I’m scanning the forest for longleaf pines, 

searching for the largest, alive or dead

or dying, lightning-struck, over-beetled. 

Trees lean from the strain of tapping — 

ax cuts angled like chevrons, slaves charged

with daily quotas, decades of tars dripped,

resins cupped from basins, overseers counting

the pines missed, the quarter-acres ignored. 

I take to clasping pines. Bark weeps

at my fingers. I measure deadfall, decipher stumps 

ringed by curling pages, wonder that three men 

had time for holding hands, spanning trees.

The Blues Lift

(or melt)

in the night

the fish I tracked

below the bridge

at the reservoir

the flights of juncos

Plain Sinking

The bright red shoes

the bio-geared soles

rock me cheerily along a paved surface

a boat bucking seas

a hey a nonny the path

aha a pond draws me across green

to smutty white

my blunder my slide

an audience of young brown frogs cheeping

ten now thirty

spring and plash down

at my red boats commandeering

The Hose

Coupled lengths of yellow hose

run from a bleeder valve through the rainforest

across meadows into the emptying duck pond

where guppies and rainbow speartails swarm

to breathe in oxygen routed from a mountain stream.

Whoever rides the mower stays to one side

or the other of the cobbled-together drip feed.

Bright colors, then a weedy stripe remind

the mower where the hose lies. After the rains come

we dismantle the plumbing, the pond floods

the low patches, grass grows high, ducks sit nests

in bogs — we rescue three hatchlings. Finally one day

the mowing resumes in the old circular pattern

skirting the edge of the woods where yellow snakes

rise in coils, multiply, stream

between the blades.

Night Wakes Me

I hear the stream’s

dark roar.

Every window wide

and still no rain.

The breeze blows chill

across my limbs.

Inside, the beating

of my same old heart.

I look for a star, 

see two more.

Morning Fog

A deer down 

in a ditch, ears high 

with listening, 

turns away from the road 

toward woods 

she might leap for 

were her legs folded, 

not broken 

by the wheels of a car 

like ours. 

Gardens she grazed 

are safe from her visits.

A thicket’s flattened bed

begins to freshen.

Migrant

Next to a Carolina highway, 

face ringed like an owl’s in white feathers,

the northern harrier stands in the gusts of September.

Dark wings, down-turned beak, staring eyes,

a folded tail, speckled thighs.

The drivers are blind 

to the pale bib concealing 

the span of muscles tied to a breastbone’s keel,

muscles quiet, resting toward the moment

when the bird flies.

Mind the Face

As morning’s tidal outflow drains the marsh

and raises muddy prints in water shine

the girl 

exposes nape and throat. 

A heron blunders up from grass

with a grating cry. 

The ebbing marsh

mirrors a house, aligns what distance blurs.

She tilts a glass,

she wishes to grow small enough

to be missed.

When she asks him not to speak

he smiles. Her mind

proposes two eyes, a nose, a mouth.

She’s afraid

to love someone this much.

Great Pink

A flamingo, a gone goose — 

darken to gray

as the marsh she sips

dissolves, her legs 

and her wings lengthen — 

she’s weightless, wisping, 

chalk-dusting away.

She leaves behind

a string of silver fish

for the full moon,

that chaste, sad face.