ocotillo
palo verde

hohokam
agave

kestrel
saguaro

cat canyon
jojoba ramada

riparian corridor
back swimmers

water strider
fishing spider

parrot feather
paper wasp

damselfly
mayfly

columnar cacti
crucifixion cacti

whirligig beetle
sonoran lyre snake

spadefoot
rat kangaroo

screech owl
white-tailed deer

bats bees moths
coati

& one hundred thousand
for a rattler bite

i reach down into the briny pool of stingrays
chocolate, ivory, beige
& as if from nowhere
three or four of them
brush their angel soft noses & wings
against the backs of my hands

& the otter whips
round & round
behind the glass
returns always to meet
my dog gala’s eyes

& the puma
wild eyes of ice blue
whirls through his ochre cliffs
wide-mouthed yowls at gaia

the prairie dog who catches sight of her emits a fear cry
his mates rush into their earthen holes

& my totem, the Mexican wolf
seems the saddest
of all

wanders in circles,
returns always to the same spot
unaffected by the four-legged outside his pen

jill and i are lost
circle tucson
the violet sun flaming
seek the Oro Valley
to the north

she gets points for driving calmly
and i, likewise, for navigating from the suicide seat

a trip will never necessarily go as planned
no
it’ll go better

joan didion
the center can not hold

the world as she understood it no longer existed

writing felt like an irrelevant act

john wayne said “he would build her a house
at the bend in the river
where the cottonwoods grow
deep in that part of my heart
where the artificial rain forever falls
that was the line joan was always waiting to hear

falling in love was not a part of her world
end of story end of time

”it is easier to see the beginning of things
harder to see the ends”

&, possible to stay too long at the fair”

in the jingle-jangle morning
joan came down silent in sunglasses
had a cold coke & lived hard, by the sea
& was formed by the landscape she lived in
but the centre wasn’t holding
jim morrison was singing “noone gets out alive”

she watched a five year old kid on the carpet on acid

the sixties ended in ’69 when sharon tate-polanski
& four people were murdered by charles manson

she remembers the horror of disorder with a clarity
that makes the nerves in her neck constrict
& she could not lay her finger upon the moment it ended
the weirdness of america in her bones
came out on the other side of the computer

in this light, all narrative sentimental
in this light, all connections equally meaningful
equally senseless

joan put her manuscript into the freezer
stripped the story of its rhetoric

the US were supporting a very, very brutal government in el salvador

new york was being raped by its underclass repeating their victimization
the powerless ruined
raped by the powerful

joan’s beloved husband john dies

“grief turns out to be a place that none of us knows until we reach it”
we know someone close to us could die but not
the obliterative dislocation of body and mind
we expect the person to return
confront meaninglessness

“keep a snake in your eyeline so it doesn’t bite you
it’s like confronting pain”

weeks later her daughter quintana dies
she was adopted. the guilt of “i didn’t take care of her
now i can’t reach her”

“there is no day in her life in which i do not see her”

“she will fade as the blue lights fade”

“i remember what it is to be me
that is always the point”

(much of this is paraphrased from the film )

monet at the vancouver art gallery

play with me now as
i vanish into VAG, avoid
the vertiginous bustle of vancouver
monet, le soleil, couchant

his silhouettes bathe in light
& air, dejeuner sans l’herbes
stay with me now, every hour
their appearance alters

landscape becomes silver stars
surface swirls from the Savoy Hotel window
clouds wrestle gesture to wisteria
mauve to whites

hang on the trellis
tendrils of the giardini
afloat on the thames
at the bathing resort with renoir

choppy river water &
zoom bloom luminous
gloom fixed on flickering faster
steam & grief smoke of war

weeping monet’s son
in verdun six hundred thousand dead
month long falling curtain of leaves
shells, dark agitated willows

acid yellow skies
subservience to illusion
the only heroic thing
is the sky

Source: Sharon Olds: Can She Write, or Is She Just a Woman?

i tie my dog gaia to a concrete bench. she howls
i put her on the balcony facing the lake. she howls

uniformed by-law enforcement officers in black & shades,
walkie-talkies, fine the owners of howlin’ dogs at Cultas Lake
this ain’t my house. i don’t want trouble

i put gaia inside, it’s forty degrees celcius. the moon is the sun
as fires blaze across BC. i close the sliding door
exit the kitchen, take three steps &

BANG

gaia flies through the glass door
families sit in front of the cabin
stare up at my balcony, jaws dangle

i tear into the house. a star-shaped hole
in the door, shards of glass & blood every where

i call gaia. she jumps through the star-shaped hole
bloody-headed, blood pours out of her mouth
part of her muzzle dangles

we are on beach where people i do not know surround me.
i hold her, trembling. a man tells his wife “go get gauze.” an eternity. four men on knees surround me. one woman stands eight feet away. a hundred people gawk

a man with liquor on his breath is telling me what to do. & i recognize craig philbrook, a boy i kissed in the woods fifty years ago. am i that old?

i’m shouting. “can you get a glassman over here!” my body breathing me. holding the trembling

a man wraps gauze around her mouth. we head to the car. she breaks the gauze. gasps for breath. he rewraps, around her neck, and mouth.

i am alone. i want someone to come with me. a boy googles the directions. boys to the rescue when it comes to trauma.

i am driving to the Sardis Vet’s. i wish there were ambulances for animals. traffic is at a stand still.

at the Vedder Bridge. construction. i drive up the wrong
side of the road. someone calls me a fuckin’ bitch. i’m untouchable

“my dog is dying” i shout.

i’m as gaia’d as jannie is lulu’d.

at the vets, a first nations girl with emerald eyes has marvelous jewelry that she found at the ‘Nu-to-Yu’. i tell her she’d be great on tv.

they operate. i hear them sedate her, blood-curdling, like my first cat sedated by the needle that the vet smashed into her back while i was holding her

back at the lake, the glass men are there, sizing, measuring. they have cleaned the living room & balcony. i get down on my knees & pray.

no. i vacuum the glass they missed, for a half hour. “look” says one glass man. “i can lay down in it & nothing happens.” wee shards in my knees.

the blood comes out of the hardwood with water. out of the balcony with Fantastic. out of the towels with cold water.

as i have been writing this, a dog has been barking two houses away.

ps lulu, jannie’s sister, died last month on her and her twin luke’s birthday, which was mine, my twin’s, and our sister’s