Nine Lines, August 9

The gold of evening is closing,
drawing in, tightening.
The light is losing. It is
a little frightening
how fast August goes.
Others have noticed this.
The cat on his concealed switchblade toes
comes by, and what he says
is silent, but enlightening.

Mount Rainier from Amtrak

We steal on steel through vague terrains
of shed and fences, weeds and waste.
Over the jumbled, trashy plains

the mountain lifts its owl-skull face,
immensely silent, blind with sun,
inhabitant of another space,

alien to the things that run
on tracks and roads, to scurfs of roofs,
crisscrossing wires, confusion:

enormous and indifferent proof
to passing souls in passing trains
that what can bless us stands aloof.

O California, dark, shaken, broken hills,
bright fog reaching over the beaches,
madrone and digger pine and valley oak,
I'm your dryhearted daughter.
I listened when the earthquake spoke
and learned what the quail teaches.
The stony bed the rain of winter fills
waited all year for the water.