The Amphibians

FYI: I wrote this as a sestina (more or less), a poetic form in which you use the same 6 words at the ends of the lines in a different order in each stanza. Because this form makes you bend over backwards to fit it, the poem has some reaaaally long lines which wrap to the next line in blogspot's automatic formatting. I don't know how to change the format so the long lines show up on one line, but you can pretty much tell how it ought to read.


Ugly as B. calamita,
the natterjack toad—
warty with glowing devil eyes—or beautiful as the
fire Salamander—orderly flame shapes repeated like the words in
its sibilant name, Salamandra salamandra.
These are the amphibians.

People often confuse reptiles and amphibians.
Yeah, yeah, scientists in a tizzy over definitions, what’s the calamity
in confusing lizards and salamanders?
Respect. It’s important to know the names of things. Amphibians are the squishy ones, those toads
you’re afraid of stepping on in
the rain. Reptiles are the

ones with scales. Caecilians are the
order (Gymnophiona) of legless amphibians
that superficially resemble earthworms or snakes. They mostly live hidden in
the ground, anatomy adapted for a burrowing lifestyle. Only calamitous
events like thunder shake them from their graves to remember their salamander
roots and emerge into the rain that they can feel but not see. Toads

and frogs, the ones that look so silent in photos on nature shows—impossibly loud
sounds bubble from their small throats, mouths closed. The
tropical ones have rain calls made on the basis of humidity cues. Order salientia:
salient rain sinks into their cells, tells them it’s time to sing—
how they must love their amphibiousness.
Then again, they’re awfully small and fragile—the ‘Calamity
Janes’ of the cloud forest—breaking new ground even as they break inside.

Amphibians are like people who cry in
movie theaters—sensitive, totally sappy.
They have a lot of feelings but can’t take it when the
going gets tough. Calamities
send them over the edge—that’s what some think, but me and the amphibians
get along swimmingly. Let me give you a piece of salamander wisdom:

It’s not about being strong. No one can stand up to constant clobbering. Salamanders
survive by fitting in
to a niche. If we take it away, they die. For their sake, I’d like to inject them
with more vitality—they should all be like Leopard frogs-
the easiest ones to catch, the ones that breed like rabbits, the
ones that have sat, clammy

and terrified in my hands, till I’ve let them leap away.

The Mermaid Under the Streetlamp

Locked myself out of my room at 2am
without any shoes, so we decided
to go over to his place. He had a bike;
I didn’t, so I rode it really slow
while he walked alongside. I forgot
road bikes can’t take curbs,
went over with a jolt, put my feet down
on shards of broken glass from a
beer bottle some dumbass chucked
over the balcony last night.
Standing there, with glass in my
feet and nowhere to go, I couldn’t
help thinking of “The Little Mermaid”—
the Hans Christian Anderson version,
where she disobeys her father
to run away with the prince and
as punishment, every step she takes
feels like walking on knives.
And as much as I’m glad that those
big symbolic gestures are out of
style, that they died around
the same time as Romeo and Juliet—
part of me felt just like her:
standing breathless in a new world,
too much oxygen to swallow,
colors deeper under the streetlights
that in a murky city undersea—
pain a hard edge to this new love—
This was how it all began.

Feet bleeding and cleaning themselves,
Then opening up again—
He helped pull out the pieces of glass
Under the orange sodium lights
and carried me piggyback the
few blocks home. We stopped
a couple of times and I think
he may have hurt his back
a bit, because we’re both almost
six feet tall and kind of scrawny—
but carrying me was a better gesture
than any nonsense about walking
on knives to prove your love.

So last year my friend and I went to this event called “Hug a Muslim,” where they told us that “jihad” meant “struggle.” Everyone performed poems about their struggles, and it got me thinking about how struggle is basically always the subject of art, so that kind of inspired this poem. This is a bit of a departure from what I usually write--my first spoken word piece. Also the first one I've performed in front of people (which was scary, but so fun.) Comments/suggestions welcome-->its a work in progress :)

We keep crawling up these sheer walls,
Struggling for causes we hold dear—
But sometimes we get tired, just wanna
Sleep for days—sink into a haze of smoke,
make fun of everything instead of
building things up.

See, I just wanna live in color, love in color,
See through my eyes and the eyes of others—
When I rhyme it’s because of what I see,
feeling spill willful from the pen but it’s
images that make them bend
to my will, become heartbeats, the streets
of my veins, the things that sustain me.
Between you and me I become we
and we praise whoever we choose to praise
because we hear the doves cry out for love
and understanding. I’m standing here talking,
probably rocking back and forth cause I’m nervous,
sure that spilling these thoughts forth is
a step towards seeing inside.

Cause you can’t hide in the spotlight.
You think I’m in it, but you’re in it—
He’s in it; we’re in it. I think the spotlight
Is a state of mind—a kind of rising out of our
small bodies in the collective conscious
Of a million souls who are
All
Universally
Alike.

Words are songs sent to god,
Or the universe, or whatever you call him.
It? Her? Pronouns can’t pronounce a
meaning bigger than life itself.

Songs are letters with no return
Address, postage, or envelope—nothing
But hope that their message will filter into
Many minds. That they’ll find their destination.

A man plays in the subway station, guitar case open,
for people to see the genius inside, the light.
They say “Namaste” means the light in me bows
to the light in you—how they fit all that into
one word is beyond me, but if hurt packs
so much force into explosions and
a mother’s love can span oceans, I think
distance means nothing and vaulting from one
dimension to another should be our new profession.

Kateri Tekakwitha

Kateri Tekakwitha was born
with her name, and born again
as Catherine of Sienna, dark-eyed
saint of the world across the sea.
Father Claude said she was
the truest convert in Kanawake:
eyes burned with a passionate purity,
hands meek as any French lady.
She died as beautifully as the pale,
naked martyrs in Baroque paintings.
So Claude wrote.

Tekakwitha was born quietly,
so quietly that her mother, laboring
through the night to bring her
into the world, thought she was dead.
Slapped her, woke the girl just
as dawn came. Tekakwitha was one
of the first to learn French, but
moved as quietly through life
as the day she was born--watching,
listening. She chose the name
"Kateri," which came more naturally
to her Mohawk tongue than Catherine.
Symbols were easier to pronounce:
missionaries likened her to a lily.
Why? For her sun-browned skin and
smallpox scars? She was thin, to be sure,
and graceful. Lived her last years
between church and chamber, scarcely
speaking to those she passed. They said
afterwards that her skin
glowed like a holy one. And when
her eyes burned with fever,
she cried out for Christ,
not her mother. As if she had
already passed on to the other world.
Two days after Kateri died,
cousin Anastasia saw her standing
in the doorway, hand raised
as if waving good-bye. “Kateri!”
she cried, but Catherine faded into
the blue evening light. When Father
Claude heard, he said he’d always known
she was a saint. Never mind that Mohawk
ghosts always linger around the home
for a few days before drifting up
into the Milky Way. When she appeared
to Claude, it was at sunrise, she held
a cross, and lilies lay at her feet.
Behind her head an an embossed disk
hovered like a gold plate. It marked her
worth remembering in story,
song, and painting.

Many of us have two names. One comes
out of the womb with us; we choose
another when we've been around
long enough for the world
to touch us. Everything living
has a name: Maple trees are called Acer;
Birch, Betula. Ash are Fraxinus
and Willow, Salix. Catalpas are
the only ones that go by the name
they grew out of the ground knowing--
they're too outlandish to change,
with their leaves big as elephant
ears, foot-long pods dropping all
through August, and showy flowers.

We are all born with a name. We change it
when something sweeps through us like a
great wind--or marks us, making us
different than we were before. In old times,
maybe killing a buffalo; today, marrying
a kind man, or being adopted by new parents,
new country, new chance at life.

A wind swept through her when she
was young, and she embraced it in
her long limbs. Perhaps I am no one
to ask. But did Tekakwitha fade
to make room for the saint?

All I know is that there are
no catalpa tree converts.

Wisteria

Wisteria winds round chandeliers,
lavender swags swoon over balustrades.
Vines cling to the woodwork,
reaching out to tickle wallflowers
under the ear with their tendrils.

Hyacinths bloom through the floor tiles,
penetrating cracks in the marble—
Red trumpet flowers swathe columns
in a many-armed embrace. Climbing vines
do an about-face, snake from dim interior
to full sun—runners pull acrobatic stunts
on the creaking veranda, where once
young belles stood, talking to suitors
over tea, both wondering when
polite words would subside
to silent introductions.

Honeysuckles at the breast
of the ruined rose arbor now
running rampant across the lawn.
This house has become wanton,
yielding to gravity, falling
downhill towards pleasure.

Years ago the wrought iron gates
gave in, green vines tumbling
them backwards into the grass.
Around tiled paths lie fragments
of fine china, a silver bracelet belonging
to that belle—chain links sinking
in loam, rose-print dishes resting
in many pieces, pressed in the earth,
the sweeter for being spread
everywhere across this field.

The garden gate moans on its hinges.
Opening, you have to actually tear away
the honeysuckle stems to pass through.
A sign that these two had best be left alone.

Blue Pine

I almost ran into Jen walking past
The house. “Wake up!” she said.
And I realized how much time
I spend in a dream world, in clouds
of preoccupations like mosquitoes.

In Spanish, “preocupado” means worried
because that’s what worries are: things
we haven’t yet admitted to ourselves
are worthless static blips in precious
brainspace that should be used for
love and understanding.

“Preocupado” is why I take my
reading out to the dock and end up
just lying there and listening:
to cicadas talking across the inlet,
to the guy who works at the
boathouse kicking a soccer ball
against the wall, to the far-off
leafblower drone.

When I open my eyes,
everything is more saturated
in blue than usual—a trick
of bright sun—especially
the pine tree above the
white canoes. The sky behind
it seems to have seeped into
its needles. A sentinel,
it stands to mark the movement
of everything else—clouds
passing behind it, soft-edged
mosaics—huge dragonflies
swooping dizzily towards home.

Every time I lie on the dock it is for
this same dream of nothing
but standing content and planted,
this something-wordless
soaking into my skin.

Tinselshimmering

[I wish the formatting had been preserved on this one...I had it laid out on the page in a more interesting way...but too lazy to redo it all here]

Tinselshimmering on the edges
of my vision
from twelve miles downhill
not enough food
cold radiating from mountains
forty pounds cutting down
into my collarbones.

Almost-fasting on a spirit journey—
thirty days in the wilderness
just roots and berries
and red leaves blooming
among the green like flowers.

Late cicadas skitter their
rattlesnake warning
frost is coming
life is dying
as it does every year—

Each year
it is a tragedy,
each year
everything fills itself brimful
with living and goes out
with a flare

And I don’t go or stay
I just walk, walk, walk on
following where my feet lead
down untrammeled meadows
up these deep grooved routes through
cottongrass
timothy
and fescue
arnica aster and blue
gentian pressed against
curves of crumbling stone
away from windchill
that strips warm moisture
from my breath, leaves me
parched and speechless

I gulp down the cool taste of nothing
wipe it on my face
it permeates my pores
trickles down my veins
like rain down roots of trees

The empty-belly feeling is only starting
it can be pushed away
like sounds into the distance
in a crowded place
when you fall into a poem

And standing empty
and sweating
onto summit-rocks
I think I might
melt into them
leave behind
all these swishing-sounding
layers of nylon
become transparent
a shimmer of existence
against granite
hardly a disturbance
in the fabric
of the landscape
for the rest
of my life

That would be wonderful