Among the Mandolins
Poems, 2012-2013
Charles Hibbard
Copyright 2014 Charles Hibbard
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To Judith, Yarn-Bombing
Left to right
across the wan sunset
sails one vast brocade
unconcerned as time.
Beyond the gray river
of road is my wife,
tagging the hem
of a giant: the lone pine
that waits out here forever
anonymous as dusk.
Like the rest of us
she wants to dance
like flame, yet endure,
to breathe and burn
but still appear
in more than just
one frame.
Watching her, my own
wish for this day is slim:
that she and I stay
both on this page,
below the cooling clouds;
on this road that points
to a shroud of storm and snow
draped above a ridge
inscrutable as tomorrow.
And so I take this picture
or borrow it.
Black Bunting
The Black Bunting
Passerina nera
is not like other birds.
Docile and kind
it will perch on your hand
and preen and fan its plumage
for your admiring gaze.
Therein you will see
despite its name
a fiery prismatic show,
all the rainbow hues
programmed for you alone
by the bird’s grooming.
But scrape it off your finger
onto a branch and step back;
now you have only black,
black as any raven,
a sparrow-shaped hole in the world.
Pick it up again
and carry it near
and nearer. The agreeable bird
continues its play;
but now the colors evade
your eyes, leaving only
the gaps between them,
the black gaps.
Perhaps, then, arm’s length
gives us the most,
not too close,
but not too far away.
St. Luke’s ½ Home
Above the little
squirrel-scuttled roof
of the old icehouse, the roar
of wind in the treetops,
and farther off the stumble
of waves on the shore.
In the small hours
I went out to the night.
Though I waited
my eyes could not adjust.
The stars were shuttered.
There was no light
and nothing to see.
The darkness wrapped me
in the smother of the whole
universe. The wind rolled
through invisible trees
like a long train, the waves
seemed closer, and not friendly.
Something from an older forest
crept up the back of my neck:
anything, I felt, could be
approaching through that black,
and I had to retreat to
the smaller darkness inside.
In the morning
against my fears
and my hopes, I knew
it had been only wind
and waves. Sunlight
owned the woods again.
The Quality of Shadows
I dreamed I was dreaming
and in my dream woke up
to find the sun throwing
shadows on my wall,
soft-edged, faintly trembling.
My heart contracted
with that silent oscillation,
and I woke up.
The shadows were still there,
but now just jagged lines
where tree limbs stopped the sun’s
rectilinear rays. Common daylight
blocked their glow from my mind.
That dream was like touching
the cheek of someone I loved,
dead long ago. And I lay awake
wondering if I should love anything
that’s only of this world.
Among the Mandolins
The city street is overhung
with tall trees and sunk in shade
on even the highest summer days.
On one corner the flower man
to passersby; across the way
the dark little music store.
In its windows, cellos and bongos
and banjos; a balalaika,
a concertina, a zither, an oud,
come and go like guest stars
in improvised cadence.
The owner, I suppose,
was not always gray.
We had dealings now and then,
over several decades:
a guitar, a few sets
of silver strings that needed
better hands than mine
to make them talk and sing.
He took my hopeful old
tube amp to sell. But though
he took my phone number too,
he never called. I inquired
again after a month or so;
he counted out ten tens
from his creaky cash drawer
and handed them over. Would he
ever have called me, or just let
my hundred trickle away
with his slow leak of debts,
hoping somehow I’d forget?
He must have scratched out
a kind of shelter from the store
because he made it all the way
to the end right there
among the mandolins.
I wonder about him when
I pass the dark window,
where today stands a photo
of a mustachioed young
dark-eyed handsome man
with a tiny, knowing smile.
Below the picture, two dates
barely parted by a dash.
Beside it a beige kitten dozes
on hindquarters and prissy paws,
wrapped in his tapered tail,
and half opens slanted yellow eyes
to gaze at me as I pause
in the leaf-shadow, thinking about
a hundred bucks; then closes
them again, no more disturbed
by my contemplation or
the new silence behind him
than is a sleeping gull by
the rise and fall of the tides.
Spandrel
Nature drew us
together, you and I
for her own ends
and may someday
tear us apart
for more of the same.
Nature made us, but
Nature didn’t make us
everything we are,
you and I.
Some of this is ours.
Agnostic
One fugitive crab
scraping his way
up the sidewalk
of Hyde Street hill, fleeing
the eateries by the bay
on tattered claws.
Though his myopic eyes
are filmed with dust,
he does not pause.
For his presumption
&n
bsp; he’ll be left behind;
while back at the wharf
his humbler mates
(or just more resigned)
are raptured up,
straight from the pot
to the gleaming plates.
End of the Month
It rises before the sun
in the dawn pre-blue
between silent black palms,
this shallow curve, smooth
and slight beyond perfection,
with freshly sharpened points.
Though tomorrow it will be new
can we really call this old?
Asteroids
The point is not
that every moment
some person or planet
somewhere dies.
The point is
that every moment
dies, everywhere,
and takes a world with it.
Red Flowering Gum
Not one of the majestic ones
this red flowering gum;
only a street tree,
but happy to be
prying up the sidewalk;
and very broad, all one
wide green mouth
gobbling the long rays
of the rising sun.
Lundy Canyon
Under my hat is a waterfall
a clear tannic pond
beaver dam gone
to weathered kindling
afternoon wind
sprinkled with swallows
glittering aspens
When I open my eyes
sunlight filters through the fabric
to this nap I can take
with me wherever
I may be headed.
Biology
She leans
in the doorway of a bar
her hair somewhere between
red and blond
soft-voiced on her cell
gentle inward press
of her arms fills
the V of her blue blouse
invoking that other embrace
of the someone out there
as she gazes down the airwaves
soft-eyed to where
he assures her
he loves her
and maybe someday will.
Theseus et al.
How we hate and love
all those who make
a career of transgression:
take what they want
and toss the husks,
sail around sacking the banks
and cities of the world,
hardly done boning one girl
before they move on
to the next, and always float
like sour cream to the top
or somehow nose out
the musky heart of every maze.
Yes, we love their
carefree grasping; and hate,
because the horrid ends
we dream for them
to compensate for their sins
are no worse than our own.
Before Us
Precambrian afternoon
one trillion and one.
sun water wind. sun
Pain
Screams forever fly
like shavings torn off
the spinning world;
we plug our ears. But why
this worship of pain?
Common as gravity,
if God exists then
it’s no worse than it should be
just negative calories
to keep us all lean
and hungry for the needle’s eye.
Creuction/Destreation
Sadly (in my mind
at least) the plum blossoms
are already past their prime –
blown away, discarded by sparrows,
driven down by rain.
But here are the new leaves
backlit red by the sun;
they’ll carry the trees
through summer to fall.
And meanwhile the cranes
are growing like grass!
airlifting beams and pouring concrete
to raise the next crop of glass
ruins on Market Street.
But the cranes are still once
night falls. Then the new moon
grazes slowly eastward,
fattening as always
this time of the month.
Junco
Bit of the world’s stuffing
balled into a twitchy knot
walking my windowsill
black hood black eyes
tail flashing scared
white streaks as it
flees absurdly from me
panicked by nothing
more than a bigger knot
of the same stuff.
Construction Boom
The Arco station
went down in a day.
Avid backhoes
gnaw its bones
and churn the gray
powder of its bed.
From corners
of metal jaws
the old soil streams,
tired of all its turnings:
vanished biome,
floor of cave,
meadow and lawn,
home, store,
church, grave.
Nancy
If a gypsy soul,
yours is only one
like all of ours
a wandering
ship on a dark sea
with patches of sun.
No romance about it.
Chill solstice
of your form
in this dim room
still; my sister
cast off, sail out
and into the mystic.
The Commons
They don’t bother to help out
with building or repair
but the pigeons flare their wings
and settle on the fountain’s brink
like landlords, to splash and drink
while below in the warming air
the gleaming traffic spins
its endless roundabout.
So Little Depends on Red
A red wheelbarrow
is like any sunset:
a handy place
to hook a string
whose other end
could be tied to anything –
a white chicken
a black blizzard
a puff of dust.
But keep your eye on the string.
Softening faces
graying hair
a wedding ring,
who cares?
Everything hangs
on the ringing space
that joins your glance
to mine. There
are the colors I trust.
The Greatest Comeback in Sports History
A downpour of sun
the dark bay blue
held by brown hills
west wind through
headlands steadies at noon
and nearly lost in the flooded sky
half a ghost moon
approaches the blank horizon
Radio Road
Toward the sewage pond
on level landfill, tricycle streets
and shading trees,
the rows of new houses
in homely plumage sleep
beneath a blue blue sky.
The pond pure green
with those houses’ waste
is a banquet for the ducks,
the godwit and teal,
and striding avocets neat
in their autumn suits.
A few dabbling butts
praise heaven; or, replete,
the birds merely stand or lie
or float on the fertile bloom
of the leisure afternoon.
Morning New Moon
I’ve seen this set
&nbs
p; plenty of times before
this white, black, and orange:
the newest of moons
drawing color up
into the latest dawn.
Stagecraft! Painted canvas
backed by a cloth of stars.
Behind it only dark and dust,
and silent draped wings.
Worn floorboards
converge on a brick wall.
And behind that?
you may well ask.
There I suppose a foreign moon
might be leading the dawn
up into some other sky.
Three Dreams
After our fight
the tie between us pulled
even tighter by dismay
I had three dreams of you
one after the other.
Each one ended with your smile
before I woke up
to this other world.
Between dreams
you were inches away
but invisible.
It was night.
Public Space
Waiting by the library door
for the gate to go up
a not very bookish crowd
faded coats and dirty pants
dusty sneakers and caps askew
smokers and talkers and silent
loners chewing their furies
one or two females wary
shapeless and still.
Above us hidden in the green globes
of leaves the rowdy blackbirds
whistle and shoot the breeze.
Up with the gate!
The flock flutters in
first to the damp latrines
later maybe to peck over
the magazines and books
the cans of recycled words.
Another noisy branch
littered with surplus birds.
A Gust of Wind
A gust of wind
through drying leaves
in long fall light
as on the edge of the world
the moon climbs with kindly smile...
here once again
is the point of life
slowly piercing the skin
the careless knife probing
for whatever happens
to remain in my heart.