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Woodsy Drowsy


coleman stove warming tea
   reading Tao chapter under pine
     perhaps I will rub ink
       and scribble the character Jen on dry bark

listening to thrush in grass
  I unroll my rug
   and answer with my flute
piercing deepest Yosemite gorge
  quivering ear drums of distant critter
      a squirrel stops motionless
        mini nostrils flair rapid
   scamper dance to music of Krishna
flute breath
  lungs full of pine oxygen
    trees full of our exhale
       our Oms

to my left is pleasant scrub oak                   
   bent to the conditions before it
     awesome looking in the dusk                         
snarled old oak
 twisted in hardwood
   abounding in foliation 
     dying in soft debris of its ancestors
       only to sprout again
          in a new sun nourished by fresh waters

next to my feet is a pond
  green slime pond
    tadpole wiggling pool of street drains
      birds sip the water
concentric circles generate from beaks
 all birds tilt head back to throw water down throat
   only pidgeon drinks by suction
 they take a bird flight swig of water
   and fly to lofts a high
   nesting in this mystery of impressions
     not questioning merely existing

I gaze horizon-ward
  and cup hand to light match
    the cigarette fits my hand
      as though a part of me
        the smoke colors my breath grey                    

   I see where it goes
mixing with earth atmosphere
   like a glass of Coke poured into the Pacific
     blending beyond detection
         a subtle presence
to which no geiger counts
  through faithful perseverence
    the emblazon orb
dematerializes fog drift
  ionization of Hydrogen/Oxygen
     providing unobscured view of light
       fine penetration of ninety-three million miles

August 24, 1975

Revised:

Artwork/Design Copyright © 1994-2008 McClay