Precision tree swallows
black silhouettes
against the dishwater cloud bank
rise like a school of fish
high above the wetlands
turning this way
rising twisting
turning that way
twisting falling
heave upward once again
and curve for a landing
in a giant big leaf maple
just for the love of flight.
Contact info: davebaldwin37@gmail.com
The young ravens in the nest are nearly grown.
They are dull black with patches of gray and white.
They flex their wing muscles intermittently,
but they know not yet what the wings are for.
Their pink, fish-like mouths prop open,
even in sleep, for mom to shove down
a grub with her beak. Dad watches the nest,
then hops aside when mom returns with food.
Expectant faces point toward the mother,
but there is always one facing the wrong way!
Mom hops over the open beaks to satisfy
the misdirected aperture. These helpless chicks
are blessed with attentive parents, but the young ravens
are a sorry lot, ragged in appearance, feathers
still coming in, and cawing off-key
when they hear the arrival of fluttering wings.
A shallow mind is never still.
A compulsive need
for constant stimulation
ensures a state
of constant agitation.
By understanding and cultivating stillness,
a deep mind
is heavy enough to master itself.
Stillness is the master of agitation.
For the shallow mind,
the world is heavy;
it is mindful of the world.
For the deep mind,
the world is light;
it is mindful of the spirit.
By doing nothing,
nothing remains undone.
I am at peace:
things change by themselves.
The world orders itself.
He challenged the ice in canyons silvergreen.
He challenged the heat, one hundred plus, to chase
the best of men. He challenged the raving rain,
thunderously applauding. The gladness of the race
was always there, but those who saw his face,
disfigured daily by sweat, fatigue, and pain
would ask, amused, Wherefore marathons in space
and time? He challenged life by trying to run
forever fixed beneath the westering sun,
but certainly he knew, beyond the wheeling sky,
the price and peace of gathering night would come
in time. He challenged those who questioned why:
With every race I learn to live, to die.
she is the wind
she cares for nothing…
he is the grass;
he cannot move
without her
Everyone knows.
Layoffs are coming and rumor has it
next week is the big reveal.
The managers assure us
the best people will keep their jobs,
that retention will be based on merit.
The old timers have heard this before.
Don’t believe that for a minute, they say.
Remember when engineering excellence
was all that mattered to the company?
Now it is about goosing the stock price
to please the shareholders.
Reducing payroll is one way to do that,
which means firing those
with the highest hourly rate.
There is an office pool
of who will get the ax.
Cynicism is out in the open
and people laugh about it.
But what can you say?
Contracts have been winding down
for the last year.
We’re losing proposals right and left.
Our bids are too expensive
we are told.
The office catchphrase now is Ask me if I care.
Well, I care. I have mouths to feed.
Oh gah! The boss is walking this way.
I hide my poem behind the spreadsheet.
Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don’t know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tends to be the difficult one.
~Donald Rumsfeld
Baghdad…
birds build their nests
in smashed houses
it’s the migration season
for people
after curfew,
men in ski masks
visit the neighbors
rib-thin dogs
hunt for food
springtime in Baghdad…
soldiers plug bullet holes
with chocolates
nest-building birds
know nothing of God
suicide video—
her last wish
is for the continuation
of hatred…
changing the channel
third deployment:
tears
cannot be numbered
the nation
goes about its business
stage props
as the president speaks:
flags, banners, signs, soldiers…
which of these things
is not like the others?
the death toll rises
because of us…
because of us
the war is back
above the fold
water finds its way
around and through
all things
even the bodies
in the Tigris River
Under a raspberry haze, row after row
of the smooth-sanded hills of the Coast Range
compress into a flat two-dimensional view.
Except for the accidental live oak here
and there, bare grassland is all I see.
Telescoped ridgelines are like art-paper cutouts
stacked on a canvas: the lowest are khaki tan;
the highest in the back are on the brown edge of black.
Only the silhouette of the topmost ridge remains
at the coming of night. Unchallenged by city lights,
a tsunami of stars washes over the world.
Dad was a ham radio hobbyist
earning his first license at 14.
It was a happy time for me
when Dad drove up
the winding dirt road
into the Oneonta Hills
in his ’51 Ford V8
where he did his radio checks
from the setup in the car:
“Calling CQ, calling CQ.
This is W6ECM calling CQ.”
Two or three hams, always men,
responded each time and Dad
and these voices in the night
compared notes about their gear.
Dad asked where they were calling from,
making notes in his log,
and there would be a sharing
of new technical developments.
All the technical stuff
was over my head,
but I was blown away
by my Dad’s radio voice,
so smooth and loud and confident
unlike his voice at home
or in public settings.
This was the love of his life
double-clicking
the Events folder
our first kiss
remembering your touch
and the tilt of your face
One of the Ms at the M&M Market
on Huntington Drive
in the early 1950s
was Murph, the butcher.
Dad was a meat and potatoes kind of guy,
and Mother was an excellent cook
of beef, pork and lamb.
It helps to have
the best cuts of meat
and Mother was good
at getting that
by flirting with Murph
on her trips to the M&M.
I saw her in action
many times, and Murph,
bless his heart,
knew he was being played
by a master manipulator.
Mother would give me a wink
as if to say, See how it’s done?
The result was always the same,
and Dad never complained
of servings at suppertime.
Romans 6:1-11
“Where sin increases, grace abounds all the more,”
said Paul to his roommate, the sophomore philosophy major
who offered this devil’s-advocate wager.
“I propose to you: the more we sin, the more
God’s grace shall abound. Thus, we should sin
with gladness so grace abounds all the more.
By sinning more, we are doing God a favor
since he loves granting grace to those who sin.”
Paul frowned and countered the jest with commonsense.
“Once we die to sin, why would we stay
in that condition? Why would the emancipated slave
stay with an abusive master? Does that make sense?
If you were released from prison, would you go back
to your cell or would you choose to live free?
The question answers itself. If you won the lottery,
would you continue to live in an old shack?”
Paul’s interlocutor loved to bedevil and astound,
especially in a deep discussion of sin and grace.
He said, “I just like to see you red in the face.”
Paul was laughing as they wandered out for a round.
A lost transcript was the beginning
of a life-altering event when I hoped to go
to the University of Oregon.
I enrolled instead at a smaller school in Idaho.
Little did I know this course correction
would mean so much.
I took a summer job at Sun Valley.
As a lowly kitchen worker,
I was quite sure my floating world
would persist, but then, there she was,
traveling through as a guest.
Sixty-three years have passed
since we met at the Lodge.
Who knows which moment is meant to last?
Who knows! From the vantage point of age,
I could be looking back with ruefulness
at a listless river in a barren landscape
or a hellscape of conflict
or a life of emptiness like the wave-polished shell
abandoned by the creature who used to dwell—
or enjoy a different contentment with someone else.
Devil-may-care at the time of first action,
my initial moves belong
to a thousand-piece puzzle near completion.
We make informed decisions, but life is long.
For happiness, there is no map,
and often it is simply the result of hap.
