Gone to Ground

 

when weather moods to strange
the townies look a certain look
at distant silver cloud sweep

read moveable graffiti
in litter ground spin
that spreads across a walk

they orient to steeple
listen for the Angelus
think-pray deliverance

clear cushions from a porch
plan indoor birthday parties
consult the Almanac

speak quietly with neighbors
when black swans shelter glide
to a weeping willow

and when a wedge of geese
disintegrates to strands
within a frantic clamor

the townies…wise and stoic
know temporary, and already
they are gone to ground

Bonnie Marshall

Artist: Jamie Wyeth
“Other Voices” 1995

 

Impromptu and with Ease

Impromptu and with Ease

Westminster bells
partition through the air
to orient for place
a pacing in the hours

 and cockcrows wake
to first ordain the dawn
with much the surety
of rows of daffodils
unclenching in the sun

it is a gentle doing

it is not blast ordained
like thunder lightning storm
from heavy-lidded clouds
decreeing lines for rain

oh, let us dance…my love
impromptu and with ease
to relegate our days
in measured roundelay

Bonnie Marshall

Artwork: Vincent van Gogh
“Wheat Fields in Rain” 1889

All Manner of Things

 

as needful to our being,
we partake of the essential
nourishment of air and water
and swallowing of bread and milk
and savoring of salt

we endure the sufferance
of idle conversation dispersed to nothing
(god, keep me from the spider’s web)
and abide time’s slide to otherness

so that if and when our worlds disperse
in gravity of a quasar blasting passion
and firm new courses in existence
frighten us with strangeness

then we shall hold to knowing
that breath means life
and water is abundant absolution
and bread and milk are nurturing
and salt … is preserving certainty
of  friendship … wisdom … love

Bonnie Marshall

Art by Pieter Claesz, 1644

 

close as Venice

and if shores wash orange with sea change
and flamingos wade a pink foamed beach
and meridians slip north and south…where
ice islands…harmless…circle earth cool clear
cubes of iridescence

and people sing to each other close like Venice
and hand-write words to paper…slips pinned
to color coded windows…walls and doors shaded
for degrees of dark despair…and lightened for
the bloom of promises…and hope

we shall become a silent movie stuff of need
to tell and touch with bonds direct..profound and
strange as emerald studded starfish on the sands
and oysters hatching diamonds in our hands

 

Bonnie Marshall

Art by Kolmon Moser
Draft for a Metal Relief, 1904

Another Fire in California

 

I wonder … when its sulky breath
shrouds their valley vineyards,
shall we taste it in our Cabernet,
and will its wind storm char
translate to their Sauvignon
before cavalry Pacific mist
is temperance enough.

Insensitive of me … I know Napa Valley,
know the genuine of people there,
and taught Shakespeare to their children,
to some now staying with the land
to grow their family and their grapes.

And I wonder …
in the midst of conflagration
how The Tempest fancy
helps them to face the present.

How crass of me to think it might,
now as fire breathes across their land
melting trampolines and bikes and trucks
and wide porched reality.

 

Bonnie Marshall
Published in August, 2015

Movie Scene: A Walk in the Clouds