Town knows her
as Mrs. Coyote. Tall and lean,
she lopes through Gold Rush Country
in tawny sweaters with earth
stained pants, her sharp nose
twitching in thought.
Grieved by the western habit
of draping coyote carcasses
over fence posts, unconvinced
their marauding brothers
get the hint, her main concern
is the wildness in their cells.
She sees these untamed eyes
staring out of poets.
Poets, who must be left undisturbed
to record the unwritten songs
that rustle dry grass,
whip treetops into leaf storms,
frenzy incoming tides.
Who express the wildness 
in cells stifled long.

My brilliant and balding
father had interests
tending to the cerebral but
in those years when my sister 
and I were big enough
to shovel, yet still biddable,
he planted a series of gardens
in the back yard.
For a few summers
we feasted on hand-picked tomatoes
and butter beans, squash and peppers. Then
Betsy and I discovered boys.
Out went half the garden
for a teen-built tennis court—
Mother supplied soda and potato chips
for the six-week-long work party.
The next spring Betsy
and I flat-out refused
so Dad wheedled (or threatened,
I don’t remember now)
and we said, OK, we’d help
but only this last time.
My father’s final garden:
midget watermelons,
strange-shaped peanuts, 
the interesting crop bordered
on four sides by raspberry vines.
Twenty years later neighbors
around the block still cursed
the forgotten gardener
when raspberry canes sprang up 
in their green velvet lawns.

The dirt road curls up like a twisted 
ribbon dropped on a mountainside. A farm in tatters
survives beside a stream. Apple blossoms at eye level, 
orchard below, pink buds rich with promise 
spread in misty warmth. 
The orchard once produced tons of dark 
winy Hungarian fruit, so deep when polished
the apples were almost black. Stunted as the old trees,
today's residents hunch thin shoulders
in faded shirts over root-matted soil. The children 
scramble through branches like squirrels,
play dolls under the drooping boughs of a neighbor's tree.
They chop firewood, muck out the stalls,
pelt each other with unripe apples.
Ride the school bus smelling of horse, and share 
cigarettes and marijuana behind falling-down barns.
Are they the last generation to live on the land?
Perhaps
some hazy spring morning we should stop and gaze
on apple blossoms at eye level 
before they are gone.

Eight-year-old Jennifer
bounced from foot to foot,
Mickey Mouse ears
flopped on brown curls.
Voice full of bubbles,
she told sagging parents
about the next Disneyland
rides on her list.
In the parking lot
lights made diamonds
flash among crumbled glass,
the window of her dad's car
framed in fragments.
Oh no, Jennifer wailed
when she looked at the back seat,
saw the empty space.
While her father 
smothered his curses,
used the cell phone
to call for help, Jenny cried
for ten minutes
over her stolen favorite purse.
Pink it was, with bright brass
snap, a white rose pinned
on the side, long strap
that shouldered, or wrapped
around her small waist.
The only thing in the car
taken, Jenny's purse
held one single dollar,
a postcard for her best friend,
the growing-up dreams
of one little girl.

Age 85, he strides into the fast photo place,
eyes the young man in necktie
and slicked-back hair, announces
he's here for a passport picture.
Watches, with a twitch of the lip,
the young eyes widen.
Big trip coming up? A smirk in the voice.
The elder says, No, son,
I just want to be ready.
He can see the lad thinking
of a round-the-world cruise
celebrating a full century 
of creaky living, says,
I also buy growth stocks and green bananas.

One black ear tilts up and pokes forward,
the other droops low in disbelief,
his cynical eyes watch the passing parade
while he ponders being mutton, not beef.

We converse as I walk by each morning,
he lies down, calmly chews on his cud.
I told ranch wife about my new friendship,
she just hooted and laughed and said, "Lud,

Let me tell you 'bout George and his escapade
and our neighbor with reason to grouse."
Seems George slipped through the bars of his old field
then wound up munching flowers by the house.

In the French doors, he caught sight of a rival.
How he hated that other ram there!
So he charged, charged again and broke through the glass,
started looking for that half of the pair.

When grandson got home, he was horrified.
So was grandma, called to the scene.
George peed and he pooped, gouged the tile, tossed his head,
raced around feeling feisty, lean and mean.

That's not all. During later discussion,
George escaped, trotted up the dirt road.
Saw the rancher's new black truck, took a fresh stance,
straight to the bright shiny door, old George dove.

That's why I visit George in his new field,
safe behind double strands of strong wire.
I don't know his fate, he'd be too tough to chew,
but he might rent out as "ramrod for hire."

Each spring they swoop
down the creek on snowmelt?
red and yellow, emerald green,
ultramarine with purple stripe.
Each kayak so fragile
the paddler lifts it
in one hand, this thin-skinned
shell of safety
flicks them down Mt. Lassen's flanks,
around Black Rock, over rapids.
Swirls them through Mill Creek canyon
where boulders choke the angry stream
to flash by my house
in a final flurry of speed.
They whip a right angle turn,
slide each boat up the bank.
Leaving their fish-bird realm
behind, paddlers reel 
light-headed, dense-bodied 
onto the land.

In Native American lore, the talking bird
calls the name of the person about to die.

My friend celebrated five years and safety
with a champagne brunch and request:
guests must wear red to give courage,
affirm life. We showed up with flowers
and scarlet, from g-string to tee shirt
to long velvet gown.

Some months later we went into shock
as she lost her second breast.
Raged and wept, built up her spirits
with gifts of red.

Today I lie awake just before dawn,
focus on the owls calling along the creek.
My ears strain to make sense of soft mutters.
On these mornings of dark questions
I rethink my day's clothes, haul out the red socks,
yank myself up.

The owls, incoherent, subside into sleep.

You slip away from your sack
   of frail bones and bruised skin
some late afternoons 
   when the weight of the day 
is too big a burden

A stranger glides in
   peers through your staring eyes
He wanders the house
   as if he’d never been here before
Searches for a machine
   with broken parts
      that does not exist
         and he cannot describe

I learn to let the stranger borrow
   your walker    body    mind
until he abruptly disappears
   eyelids flutter 
and you return

A campfire that’s been rained on
smells like Lapsang Souchong tea,
musty with old memories, dank
on the tongue, gritty to the nose
while sliding, dark and rich, down the throat.

The smell reminds me of Chinese 
crowds on hilltops, Lake Baikul’s
fantasy stones, standing deep in the heart
of karst-mountain caves ringing
bell-like with crystal ghosts.

The smell mixes with early morning
in the Sierras, mist rising,
on a cloud of coffee-steam blended
with bacon and onion frying
in high crisp air.

I went with writer-women
to a meadow sky-high in mountains to a labyrinth
laid out in courses of rock.
In the spirit of the day
I did the correct things:
heard a talk on labyrinth history, looked at books
spread like a picnic lunch, wafted rabbitbrush
and prayer against cobalt air.
I even tucked mugwort in my left nostril.
As prepared as I could make myself, I set foot
on the sacred path.

My feet wanted to march in a hike.
I slowed them.
My brain buzzed with chatter louder than jays.
I turned it off.
I followed the ancient pattern, focused old pain
in the acorn I rolled in my palm.
Waited politely while the woman ahead
went through gyrations known only to Buddha
at the 400, it seemed, stations of her new belief.
Women patted rocks, sat cross-legged 
in the center, flung arms around bodies
passing, shared a caress.
I kept stepping across rocks for oncoming traffic.
The occasional smile twitched
the corner of my mouth. I confess
I bent over buttercups, noticed purple vetch,
fingered pink foxtail stars, watched salal bells
chime their silent song. But illumination?
Enlightenment? Deep release? No.

My heart jolted. 
At the end of one lane
in the matrix of white of a granite boulder,
a granite heart marked the turn in the path.
My feet refused to carry me around.
My fingers, as if drawn by a cord,
pressed their soft flesh against the stone heart
while my knees folded me to the ground.
Head bowed, I felt you, long dead,
fill my body with tears long-shed.
As I rose, your hand led me to the labyrinth's center.
There, in a rock hollow, I dropped
the acorn dull with old pain
to the lichen and cedar tips,
faded flowers, one silver bead.

Calm, I started the outward trek.
Found myself halted again 
at the heartstone. Something
seemed to be bothering my eyes.
Despite a sense of sacrilege
I fished a tissue from my jeans.
Nose buried, blew away tears -
and sticky mugwort.
My hair lifted in the freshening breeze,
I felt you flow away from me.
Able now to take that turn in the road
I rejoined the writer-women, my lips sealed,
eyes glowing like opals, matching the looks
on their faces, their stilled hands.

She stands
in limp satin and
early daylight,
adrift 
in a field 
of star thistles.
Motel's blind back
wall rebuffs,
street lies empty
as his promises.
She tastes night's 
foggy kisses
in a mouth
full of moss.

Torpid as a slug crawling on concrete,
fuggy cloud wrapped around my sticky limbs,
I sit breathless in September heat.
Watch black-haired men with sun-darkened 
skin crawl in their giant machines across Mill Creek bridge
over summer-starved water and algae.

White pickups begin and end the procession.
Next comes a flat-bed loaded with shaker,
then left-wing, right-wing
trays slanted the length of three cars.

When joined like the edges of cupped hands
they catch cascading bodies, plump 
and purple dusted with silver.
The prunes tumble into wood bins banded
in steel, stacked, stacked again 
for their journey to drying.

Through the dirt and dust of harvest
orchard to orchard, owner to owner,
the procession of metal and migrants
marches up the Sacramento Valley.

In January I chop dried prunes, smell 
a sudden gust of hot wind laced with fruit, see
small men shepherd massive machines
in procession over a bridge
linking sweat and supermarket.

The happiest guys of the morning 
ride a spreader, that monster machine,
ultimate boys’ toy, legitimate work model.
	
Looking like a string of Christmas lights
draped around the rig, they wear Cal Trans vests
of day-glo orange, fluorescent green. 

The driver, in his 40s, hunches over the wheel,
takes up most of the narrow country road, 
almost sideswipes the struts of the bridge.

Beside him a young man whose red hair 
curls up around his hard hat 
clutches a bar to hang on.

Ranged across the back of the behemoth
the other four—flannel sleeves sticking out
of down vests spotted with grease.

What must be the crew chief, relishing his ride, lounges
on a platform slightly higher, cigarette drooping
from the languid hand he lifts to passers-by.

Traffic stops in all directions 
as the outfit lumbers past, gracious smiles 
(with a touch of smugness) are bestowed on the cars. 

The six men enjoy the early day freshness, the scent 
of hay smothered in hot tar fumes, on their way
to pave another block of lost pasture.

The gravel of the ranch road
sharp under our feet,
we walk among bulls.
Fill our lungs
with methane-flavored air
spiced with ozone 
from the thrashing stream.
The bull by the lane
takes a stance on wide-planted legs.
White hair curls
on a broad forehead
between horns curved to kill.
He stares in our eyes,
stretches a mouth around
square yellow teeth,
emits a bellow.
I leap. You just coo,
Hello, big beautiful boy.
We march on 
unmolested by bull.
They’re almost pets, you explain
as my heart thumps erratic beats,
and bull noises come 
from all over the field, 
through budding oaks.
Friends they are, raised together, you say 
as we approach six Herefords, twelve horns, 
and walk straight through
their parted ranks, grass-scented
breath steamy on our skin.

The first middle-of-the-night phone call
I've received with good news
came from your cell phone
on the way to the hospital.
You said, It's starting-
but don't come yet, wait till morning.

I forced my body to lie flat
though my eyes wouldn't close
and watched red minutes 
click out the rest of the night.
I lived through each of my pregnancies,
delivered a hundred healthy babies,
sent my heart to your laboring body,
an air kiss through clouds.

Before dawn slipped its first tendrils
of pink over the horizon
I was up, dressed and coffee-d-
on my way.

I stood, hand on your forehead,
as my mother stood with me
and her mother stood with her
at this miracle moment.
We all waited to welcome 
our child.

I cast an eye
on my only sister's birthday card,
laugh out loud:
A puppy's liquid gaze 
beseeches help
under blue checked ribbons
tied in bows around floppy ears.
I flash to Betsy on her knees in the grass.
Ten bows of ten colors
grip tufts of her short blond curls
as she struggles to tie ribbons
on the neighbor's long-haired dog.
Under our snorts and guffaws 
and jokes about age
we know that when one of us dies
there will be no one left
who laughs about 
our shared childhood.