Suburban Ruins

…In the country
by a creek they walk
as often                     on a paved road

Penelopeya 
         Hehrmess 
                                 and their little boy
                                                                    Ahgreyeuss

He scrambles
over the banks
pointing out frogs and sticks
insects under logs

He becomes alone
where the stream runs straighter
to the suburbs
through the rip-wrap
wire
bars and
broken blocks

Then flowing
across the cracked
cement searching rushes
and pools

finding goldfish in the confusion
of human wild 
                               shopping carts
                           cattails
                                riffles
                                          bathtubs

It is a meaningful wasteland
of percolation

filling his pockets
                   with foot-long pollywogs
             painted turtles

The Drawing of a Dream

                          …In disheveled
                                  in student housing
                           kitchen and cupboard
doors leading
                           to the private quarters

alone                                      
             Ahgreyeuss Pahn
                  is an anxious stranger
A woman comes in from privacy                                                          
freckled dark                                                                 

to eat toast                                                                                 
ignoring Pahn…

…Pahn walks through a door                                                                    
to find a studio                                                                
large                  modern..
bone white walls
easels
canvas 
 drop-cloth

A photographer takes pictures                                                      
of his girlfriend
while Pahn gets in his way                                

Pahn looks out over the fields and woods
lies down     covering himself                       
                           with a white sleeping bag
He listens                                                           
to other rooms                        
through the heating vent

The photographer (now an artist) is a little annoyed
but Pahn seems to have       a place here—
no longer            a stranger…                             

…Now he possesses the place                        
                                              modern mansion
wearing a suit                       
drinking                                    
      looking over his spring estate
expecting friends                   

They arrive in an old station wagon

rusted and muddied
A woman stands near them                                

and though she resembles                               
                                   a pleasant waitress
                                                             that he met in Portland
                                                               at a Thai restaurant
she is                                                                  
in fact          evil                              
and of the             
                                       CIA

She drives a square     business car                      
        and tells Pahn’s friends that they cannot park
in the place where they have parked                                       

and she threatens Pahn also

In disbelief                                                                                 
Pahn is livid                                                                         
and throws her to the ground
to hurt her
                             tearing her clothes
and lying on top of her
But stopping to wonder                                              
at his own actions

Pahn ceases                                                              

thinking                                         
“I will get in trouble
and

it is not what I mean”

So he forgets…

                               ….he walks
leaving home and room-mates
to hitchhike…                        

              …the university is his grammar school
He hitchhikes there      many times                                              
remembering every ride                                       
Wayland comes by          and asks about the drivers                
and Pahn says                                                               

“They are all good and friendly
                                                                     and come soon”…

…Pahn is no place now                               
There is nothing behind him

he looks only
and sees
from no age
no shape
but speaks
to impressions of
people near

                      Penelopeya

               Ahnjehlia
                       and another woman
                                      his future bride?
A pair of hands       show drawings
Images       from his childhood
                              a spotted dog
Excited                                                                
Pahn asks Penelopeya

                                          “Did we have a spotted dog?”

The drawing comes animated
and a dancing woman crosses the lawn in front of their big
                                                                white
                                                                                           house
She is                                                                    
mother           
sister                
and someone else      

Pahn holds a basketball                                    
and he is happy                      

Mother/sister/other                                            
throws the ball high

              past hoop and houses
and Pahn exclaims                               

“It is as a dream
It will go higher than it could and come
down slowly like in my dreams of falling and
never touch the ground”

so it falls                                                                                
metamorphosing                                                   
to freeze into the drawing                         as a many colored mushroom                  

And Pahn asks                                                                         
“Who drew this wonderful picture of a dream”…

…It is in a book                                                                      
He is in the library                                                  
with Galaksaura               
He says

“I didn’t know you animated
Did you draw this”

“Yes”
She says                                                          

.

.

Living in a Barn

 .The phone rings                                                   
Pahn knows it is for him         
               but there is no one there to answer…

…he is at a river                                                       
a shelter
in age and ruin                         
                      healing in to the riverbank        rotting
   away its scar of newness

He doesn’t know what the shelter was for
gear?
  tools?
     books?
People worked here
Pahn has come to find something
with Rahbin and Ahnjehlia
They sit to look                         

The river is muddy
              and carries things away
There are intimations of the library
                 and the view from here is the same as it is
                                                                                     from there
except
There is freezer ice                     
melting with rain
                  in Wildcat Canyon
                                            distinctly out of proportion
and causing this melt flood

They move about                               
Crawling
                              stepping on old boards
                                            loose and rotting
that hint of old men

Pahn leaves his companions                                
                                            and enters the shelter
For a moment it is a garage
   but Pahn’s mind changes—
                                                 it becomes the library
 ..and in his confusion               
he feels shaking                            

Awakening in his barn
in his bed
he wonders                                 
if he is feeling an earthquake
or if
                he has just rolled over in his sleep

The shelter is again a garage               
                    for now
and the earth is indeed shaking

He stands in a stuccoed arch                                         
facing asphalt and power lines
panicked
He runs in circles                                                             
until the temblor stops…

…This pavement suggests a city                         
and there are city folk                      
talking about the flood                  
showing Pahn the water marks
on their mobile homes         
           without showing themselves

The earthquake bids him inside again
                                                                   It is a school now
He wends through sheets of broken glass
and fallen beams    Here
the earthquake has made ghouls            
                                    left among the children of this school
                and the children          who are threatened by the ghouls
ask Pahn to save them

Pahn shatters the ghouls                                        
with splintered boards
                  as is they were made of glass
and leaves           Down the sidewalk
as if he were going somewhere
he walks on a street of real distance                
wearing only a towel
to face a real city
lost
People deride his manner of dress                    
push him down

He comes to the barn again                      

still no essence
he supposes
this time it is a museum

There is a dark-skinned family             
picnicking outside        
The father rests by a telephone
off the hook               Inside the door           is Michael Jackson
talking on another telephone                                           
The father asks Pahn to hang up for him
Pahn hangs up perplexed                           
Inside
Michael calls his family                          
                                                           The telephones are black
                                             The telephones are always black

There is another family here                            
down the hall    foreign
Penelopeya is with them     
                                                                 She accompanies Pahn outside
and back in again                               
        to see Uncle Lotho
                     and an auntish woman
                             who are comparing gold

At last              they walk through a door
past the black telephone
into the library            
where uncle Lotho

is Pahn’s supervisor                                              
                                      and Pahn is working on a spirit drawing
Uncle Lotho chides Pahn                                     
because this spirit drawing is wrong                              but what does he know
                                         about spirit drawings anyway?

and he chides Pahn                                     
for leaving old maps out

                                                                    Pahn wants to leave
but doesn’t know where to go

He goes out back with Penelopeya                   
and here is the river

the flood receded                        
Penelopeya does a strange thing—She climbs
                                                            high into a maple
and jumps down smiling

Uncle Lotho has come out to watch and he is also
                       smiling
He says she does this every day                             

…


Pahn hears the phone ring in his barn
Uncle Lotho answers           
                              hangs up
Penelopeya asks for whom they were calling
Uncle Lotho says it was for                            
                                 Ahgreyeuss Pahn

But he is not there

Marrying Egairia

.
Passing                               
by the light blue
                                            family room
                                            walls

into the kitchen in the aftermath
of childhood
         of water

with only his mother
(Penelopeya)
         left lingering
                                    there    straightening
the background                                   

the chairs
                upended
                                on the dining table           a thicket
                                                                              of elm
                                                                                    legs

the slate glow evening
                                                          
He comes                                         
upon himself          
sitting
                                            talking to Egairia with comfort
and laughter settling
into his body

the interchange                  
                            of familiarity between
                                       them          recognizing
an affinity of smile                        
and similitude   

          of warmth

.

.

His Mother From the Sky

.
…Pahn wants to get there
                        but there are no more tickets

He buys a ticket to another place      instead
thinking it is better to go somewhere
than to stay
After entering the station                                                   
he realizes
                that once inside
he may take any train he likes

…

wandering about a University building…

                                                                         …after a while
sitting on a balcony
with Yaohwa

looking over the side
he sees the backs of wild animals                                  dogs?
                                   peccaries?
he asks Yaohwa which they are                              
 
                                Yaohwa doesn’t know
but soon they show their tusks

Pahn sprays them with water                 
                                     from a hose
to shoo them away

he is making a mess with emotion     without effect

One peccary jumps up to the hose
biting the nozzle                   
Pahn shakes it                                                
to knock him off…


…Pahn is driving a rented camper-van
Aiks follows                              
in a car

They stop at a sign                                                          
and Pahn gets out of the van
The people in the car behind them     honk      
and Pahn gets back in the car
                    to get out of their way…

…They are sitting in the grass                         
             There is lightning in the distance    obscured
                                                 by the tall brush
Pahn gets up excitedly                                              
trying to get a better view
 
                     The electricity quickly cracks above
revealed                                                    
                               as a cloud-shrouded metallic rock
lightning rays pouring   from
                                                      a hole in its side
splintering
and                        
                                  cascading
                                   all
around                                           

Pahn’s awe turns to fear                                         
as the rock descends
as if to take him
 
          The clouds clear away showing
                            the rock in the shape of a silver bed
                                                                      with many lights

circling down to Pahn and Aiks
           turning into a geodesic sphere
                                               of shiny plates
                           encrusted with lights     and bolts

and Pahn shoos it away like the Peccary

What is he afraid of? …

…Back in the van                                              
Pahn misses the exit
pulling on cords to slow the vehicle
as it turns into a bobsled
sliding to a stop
nearly rolling

They have come to a place that they have
                                                                        visited recently
near Rakhehla’s land—

mild hills
                           of soft spring grass

and old blossoming   orchards

.

.

The storyteller now must stop

 to note         that legend says
Penelopeya was so frightened of
a boy/goat’s body that        when Pahn was born        she ran
away shrieking          thus Pahn      has no memory
of being carried by Penelopeya
                                                    no more
than the slightest sense
of her holding his hand        but
somedays sitting in his bath    thinking of Aiks
                                                               who is his greatest love
he feels       that sense of being lifted

It may be         that the loss of his mother
at birth
                is why
                                                         he so fears death
                                                        he has never quite thrived
and why   he wanders
                          about the pastures or
woods             searching for hands   to touch him
and beauty that comes willingly to him

but
this is just a legend                                                 

we have no way of knowing

.

.

What is Left of Her

.

Penelopeya
Is     six     inches    tall

She has gotten
                                                         into the drainage system
 
          Looking for an outlet
Pahn
                                                   passes the old foundation
           weedy
           low and sunlit
where there is a pipe
                                    jutting from the cracked concrete and
he removes the cap
                                                     to let her out

She jumps down running                                                         
out of view
                                                      into the wild
                                                        garden of her own
                                                       volition

under the vines                                
         and bracken
 
                                                      of untended
                                                                  side yard
.

.

Traveling in the Desert

.

La Purissima Conception

A curving walk
of decomposed granite

a dry mound
of xerophytic plants

out of the missions                      
      in the sixth decade               Owens Valley

out of his parent’s time              They drive
in the years after the war            in the hot speed
                                                             through the trough
they sit                                                 of the graben
                                                              into the Mojave
in the soft warmth                           like a finger
of the dry heat                                  following a line
the estivating plants                                   on a map        
 and inherited memories                      past a cave called Pilth
                                                               to a desert cafe
They could be                                           
a brother and sister                    He sits with Egairia
a husband and wife                      who is not quite herself
two stones                                     but more like Aiks
full of each other’s presence                       She asks him
                                  like this air                to speak to the waitress
     having a common history               and when he returns   
 or a common mind                his seat has been taken
 
                                                                           As the people move
                                                                     to make room
                                           mumbling
          that it’s as crowded
        as a bus
        Egairia says
in a quiet
sad voice
that she wants to leave

The waitress tells them
that if they want to be alone
they’ll have to go
into the desert
to a cliff
or a grotto


…


Shadow Valley

They pass through his tribe
of light friendly people
wearing headbands
and living with
the water
of the desert
trapped in their eyes

They pass through
his other tribe
(“Geronimo’s tribe”
says the waitress                                      A child
through the air)                                        Pahn walks barefoot
of dark                                                          through the mesquite
quiet strength                                                            to touch
hard and good looking                          Penelopeya’s Long dress
                                                             of dust
where a man                                                     and cloth
from the Bureau                                               faded
scolds the administrator                               and dry
for failing                                                         thick and layered—
to build a back wall                                     the body so protected
                                                                           as never to be felt
But the administrator                                as if it were winter
points out                              and he can only feel the hem
that he was not given                            as he turns away
adequate resources               
 
                               back toward the desert wilderness

And Pahn feels like he has                                              


killed someone                  
 
           The administrator knows his words
mean nothing
to the man
but knows also
how true they are

…


Hunter Mountain

Pahn’s desert is naked
its wind-blown skin
smooth with soil
holding its water inside
waiting for the one
who will go with it
into the horsts of rock—
the hidden springs
of the high pinyon

.

.