Saturday evening
a house across the creekbed
blasts music
but the frogs make it okay
make it tolerable
so many voices
loud
plaintive
happy
contradictory
ceaseless call and response
so many
I remember years ago
after the rain
tiny frogs
everywhere
on the path
so many
you had to watch
every time
where you put your foot.
I walk on the creek path
after the rain
one small, dear channel of water
runs in the center of the bed
when I turn to go home
it walks with me in my direction
silent companion
in the desert dusk.
In the desert
everything is poised
always
ready to reach
toward life
so the rain speaks
to the dry desert
like nowhere else
on earth.
My neighbors talking in the dark
crickets chirping
warm silky air
both comfort and longing.
The desert is funny, you know, the way it is summer in late winter, not desert summer thank goodness but ordinary summer like in normal places, so we can leave the doors open and feel the warm air in the early dark and really what can be better than warm nights, completely delightful, not hot nights of course, not like summer nights here which are dreadful, awful, so sometimes even on these silky nights in late winter it is a bit troubling really, thinking of the summer nights when it can be 111 degrees at 10:30 at night and so then it can be hard to truly relish these early warm nights because I just want it to be cool as long as it can be knowing what is coming and staying and living here those six brutal months of summer.
[This is a bit of the piece I wrote for my class. I’m imitating Gertrude Stein from a selection of her letters in The Letters of Gertrude Stein and Thorton Wilder.]
The assignment, to imitate a voice
so I read her letters to a friend
letter after letter
as dusk deepens
and white-crowned sparrows
chatter in the courtyard
and go silent
I write my little piece
into the dark
so easy to fall into her voice
familiar and dear to me
for forty-three years.
I wake to a feeling in the air, an almost smell, a difference. Then I hear it through the open windows, quiet patters on my neighbor’s awning, soft rain falling. I lie on my back, early morning light, cloud light, tasting the rain, savoring, thanking. Then comes the voice in me who always wants more, who wants to hold things longer than their time. “If only it could rain all day,” it says, sotto voce. “If only I could stay home and enjoy it instead of being stuck inside the library all day, missing it.” But today I have more sense. “Shush,” I whisper back. “Hush, now,” I say. And I return to savoring, to thanking, to dancing inside to the song of this morning rain, this unlooked for gift, this happy surprise.
No Holds Barred 