K.A.Wood - Island Poet

Brest, France - 1805

2010-03-09T15:17:00.000-08:00

She swears that she remembers
the last time we lay as lovers;
promises and kisses in the dark
before the fleet sailed
on the first north wind of autumn.

She says I left her aching-lonely
stalking headlands, watching always
for the white topsails returning
her Lieutenant in the navy of Napoleon
the father of her unborn son.

Her seductive savior, I was
forever lost to Nelson's cannons.
Only echoes of Trafalgar's deadly roar
broke the cold and stony silence
waiting by her painted door.

And she feels again
relentless as a thorn
broken off beneath the skin
her endless never knowing
if she had simply been a fool

or loved.

K.A.WOOD
2004

Seeing Green

2010-02-28T19:55:00.000-08:00

November's grey and patient rains came
quietly and slow, intimate and surprising
as always, filling pores and hollows
absolving me of summer sins
opening my eyes wide
in the kindly light
I have begun to see again
the ten thousand colors
we call green.

K.A.WOOD
2004

Overloaded

2010-02-20T11:51:00.001-08:00

The last boat.
The first car
to not get on.

Left in America

all alone
in a strange land
no longer my own.

K.A.WOOD

Lessons

2010-02-20T11:49:00.000-08:00

Death has come visiting
too many times this last year
leaving us lessons in loss:
someone in the photo is always blinking,
you raise your binoculars - but the bird has flown,
last words are unremembered
except
for their lingering metallic aftertaste.

With Caleb, Age 2, On the Porch

2010-02-18T22:59:00.000-08:00

My weatherglass does not lie,
this hope colored sky
will again be gray with rain.
But for now, while the sunshine flows
honey-warm and honey-slow,
it is enough and more
to simply sit and rock
with this small and sleeping
grandson in my arms.

K.A.WOOD
2005

Breathe Normally

2010-02-16T22:33:00.000-08:00

Attention passengers: We will be flying today
at an altitude of thirty thousand feet.
In the event of sudden cabin depressurization
an oxygen mask will miraculously drop out of the overhead compartment.
Pull downward sharply and the flow of oxygen will commence.
Place the mask firmly against your face;
breathe normally - the bag will not inflate.
It will look like nothing is happening; nothing.
Breathe normally anyway.

If you are traveling with a small child,
first put on your own mask, then the child's.
Unconscious, you will be of no further use to your beloved daughter.
You will be unable to calm or to comfort, to say
"Goodbye" or "I'm sorry; for all those times
I've failed you, for all the terrors
I have not kept away, for all the times
I called you by your sister's name."
You will be unconscious and denied the absolution
she might have given.

So put your mask on first - and remember,
breathe normally.

K.A.WOOD
2007

What If

2010-02-16T15:42:00.000-08:00

All six billion of us inhaled
all at the same time?

What if
we exhaled
all facing the same direction,
how much wind would that be?
Hurricanes, typhoons, tornadoes?

What if
we all jumped in unison?
Six hundred billion pounds of humanity
hitting the earth all at once: landslides, earthquakes,
tectonic plates cracking!

What if
all six billion of us roared
in one thundering voice,
"No more war!"

What then?

Remember

2010-02-16T15:22:00.000-08:00

Today, along Massacre Bay, I met
an Elder of the Raven Clan
visiting his relatives.

He was standing in the road
as I approached
he looked me in the eye.

With a sigh
but without reproach
he fluttered to a branch
of the ancient Fir
with the two bent limbs
that mark the camas fields
from the water side.

As I flew by
he gave to me a message
which I now pass on to you:

Remember us.

Nurse-logs

2010-02-15T21:43:00.000-08:00

We grow bold now
hemlock-poets all in rows,
our tender roots in the sweet
embrace of rich decay.
Our loving nurse-logs:
Shakespeare, Blake and Wordsworth
Yeats, Williams, Stafford and all the other
old-growth giants pulling sunlight after them
in their turn to the mossy forest floor.
Their thundering falls opening up the canopy
and in the cathedral silence,
room for our new songs, sunshine
for our little borrowed words.

K.A.WOOD
2004

Good Dreams

2010-02-15T21:30:00.000-08:00

Dear One, for tonight
I was going to wish you sweet dreams
but that's not quite right.

What I wish for you
are good dreams,
rich and filling,
deep and flowing dreams
of demons slain and children found,
dreams of long healed cherished
wounds unbound.

I wish for you the dreams you need.

K.A.WOOD
2004

Cliff Sitter

2010-02-15T21:26:00.001-08:00

Head in the clouds
Gregorian chant of fatherhood
At my back
My face to the mist
Sipping morning coffee
From half a world away

Even today
My thoughts turn north
With gray whales and geese

K.A.WOOD
3/10/94

Brest, France - 1805

2010-02-13T18:34:00.000-08:00

Clearing Trail

2010-02-13T18:28:00.000-08:00

Dad rides point for us
clearing trail, up ahead
over the next hill
seeing where
that last road goes.

K.A.WOOD

Ebb Tide in Rosario Strait

2010-02-13T18:25:00.000-08:00

Drift logs pass by
and change their minds
returning
perhaps to put out roots
and climb a bank
rejoining the forest
telling tales
of wonders never seen
by other trees.

K.A.WOOD

Return

2010-02-10T20:09:00.000-08:00

At the turn of the tide
when the great heron hunts
and the sea is diluted by tears,
we will turn and upstream swim
to the altar of clear waters.

The silver thieveries of the sleepless rain
return
in prawn shell and herring scale
seized in black-lipped bony mouths
brought home the only way we know - as flesh

offered up to the ravenous trees,
our part of the ancient pact;
the lives we will not live to see
will be cherished by a forest grown
on salmon flesh and salmon bone.

K.A.WOOD

Shadowless Night

2010-02-09T22:02:00.000-08:00

Without prelude - I awaken
in that time before roosters
eyelids snapping open - without blinking
waiting
hunting the translucent dark for cause
in perfect stillness
the night pauses
like a blind man knowing he is not alone
I feel a presence close
then a single sound - a hollow earthen echo
lifts me smooth and silent
shadowless night at my window
granite-still I stare
and slow as the thought of trees I see
looming an arm's length away
a Blacktail doe,
with roses on her breath.

K.A.WOOD
2004

The Goddess of Obstruction Pass

2010-02-09T21:47:00.001-08:00

We come to this
Your place to dig clams
asking Your blessing;
a pot of chowder.

Your holy waters drawn back
we kneel, digging in the shells and gravel
seeking the salty sacrament;
butter clams.

Buckets brimming,
shoulders burn and hands cramp
on gritty handles - giving thanks
back up the long trail home.

K.A.WOOD

Fresh

2010-02-08T14:28:00.000-08:00

I fell crazy in love this morning
with a long lashed, kohl eyed
beauty. With a seductive swing
she walked purposefully alone
on delicate legs - fine boned
as china, away from the bleating crowd,
across the fertile and the fallow
in search of greener pastures.
Suddenly I knew how
all those country songs
were true, how roots
will tell and how
Vern and Sidney's Jersey heifer
could steal my heart
without even a glance my way.

K.A.WOOD
2004

Potlatch

2010-02-07T13:09:00.001-08:00

Those people that lived
here; they danced,
they gave everything back.

That could
be a good way
to live here.

K.A.WOOD

Orcas Island

2010-02-07T13:07:00.001-08:00

Forest and Sea
Mighty Yin
Makes men quiet
If they listen

K.A.WOOD

A Letter from the Other Hand

2010-02-05T11:16:00.000-08:00

I am so tired of, "Here, hold this."
How many times have I been
sliced with sudden knives,
smashed by crashing hammers?
I carry every scar
yet
you've never let me shake a hand
or drive a nail
and I won't even mention
the women I have not caressed.
You just don't trust me
To do it right.

See, even the language is on your side.

K.A.WOOD
2004

Battered Angel

2010-02-05T11:06:00.000-08:00

He abandoned Berryman, Henry and Bones
his armature of grief outgrown,
split up the back where he crawled out
onto the ledge,
his father's son at last.

On a bitter Minnesota night
with neither malice nor remorse,
his sentence served, John Smith took flight
from the Washington Street bridge,
a battered angel beating unseen wings.

He let go of the lying
and he let go of the railing,
giving himself up, finally and entirely,
to that long prophesied, unstoppable fall
into the icy arms of the Mississippi.

K.A.WOOD
2004

Winter Solstice 1974

2010-02-03T20:05:00.000-08:00

We gave Dad his Christmas present early
A pair of slippers like Grandpa's
We thought they might keep his feet warm
On the cold hospital linoleum
His last and first time there

When the D.T.s hit
He tried to leave, to come home
I.V.s ripped from work-thick arms
Smashing equipment - down the hall
Driving rage to the end

Perhaps he only wanted to die
Under the stars,
Beneath the sky
He never made it out
Of the flourescent maze of hallways

They did emergency surgery
To remove his ruptured pancreas
Just as he feared
He died on his back
Opened up like a gut-shot bear.

K.A.WOOD
1990

Crows At Sunset

2010-02-03T16:11:00.001-08:00

Where do crows go roaming
Bearing in black-shell beaks
The long silence inside stones

Is there somewhere a home
Filled with a secret peace
Where do crows go roaming

Black as buffalo souls
When the darkness owl-screams
The long silence inside stones

Though they pray with hollowed bones
God hears but does not speak
Where do crows go roaming

When dawn begins to glow
Their heretic joy leaps
The long silence inside stones

They rise like shattered smoke
Like shadows freed by trees
Where do crows go roaming
The long silence inside stones

K.A.Wood
2007

my first villanelle!

Robert Frost Was Right

2010-02-01T18:26:00.001-08:00

Some things
Should go unharvested:
The slow golden rain of pears,
Unspoken offers from old friends,
Sorrows sown in childhood,
Inherited fields of rage,
The unpaid debt of blood.
Some things should be left
To soften in the sun, to melt
Into the understanding soil.

K.A.WOOD
2004

Ordinary Joys

2010-01-31T17:19:00.000-08:00

All afternoon -
We worked in the garden
While the tulip petals fell
Beneath the crabapple snow
In that corner by the red rose-tree
Where the iris never bloom - not ever.

In the yard -
Iron dragonflies
Protect their plans behind iron eyes,
While wooly thyme waits breathlessly
To be trodden, to endow the idle air
With nostalgia and myrrh.

Across the field -
The old apple trees
Gossip of bees, humming old melodies
In their petticoats of pink and white
Never minding the words are long forgotten.

I want to remember -
Those songs; this afternoon;
These ordinary joys – that pour over me
Drenching my eyes, filling my shoes
With the waltzes of home
Where the dancers may change
But the tune endures.

(italicized words from a poem by Peter Pereira)

K.A.Wood
May Day, 2006