Friday, December 30, 2005

DURING INCESSANT RAIN IN NORTHERN CALIFORNIA, FOR THE NEW YEAR

FIELD

Campanula


The worked-over, obscure worries blur gold
In drying grass. Now that you’re back I’m jazzed.
From standing out in the electric field,
In your hand the cut wild flowers buzz.

We get to jump with poppies, as sex-crazed—
Such fluttering in warm wind, where the sun
Burns all the little lies I told away.
We’ve watched butterflies. Whose wing-edges burn

Frail in bright sunlight, frail... wearing away,
Like ancient wallpaper. Summer wears on,
Frayed at the edges.—Registering dismay
You turned your gorgeous face full on me. One

Was once a handsome swain, or city kid
Of average looks, perhaps. One wants to please
In some capacity, however bad.
I’m epidemiologist to bees.

But since I’ve failed to help them, the wild flowers—
Render their judgment, and, —I should be torn
To pieces by the coyotes, for hours
I haven’t put in, trying to heal the burn

My body’s made in what was once as pure
As arctic air—I mean that other world
We plunged into as kids, of chill water
We’d drink from swift, tea-colored creeks, unboiled,

To lie on sunwarm rock, a laughing noon
That agitates our quantum of the free
Happiness, showering photons, while the sun
Stands still a minute, where it’s supposed to be—

With nervous energy, surviving bees
Lay down their worry lines, find hanging bells
Chiming a kind of silence, a sweetness,
As from some lost city of golden cells.

10 comments:

Doug said...

Beautiful.
(I'll ruin it with common corn:
It has my Ringing Endorsement.)

Mike Jones said...

It's supposed to pour rain and howling wind tonight!

Doug said...

It was a dark and sinister night on the south side of Sausalitio.

(little counterpoint to Jamie's stuff)

Doug said...
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Doug said...

Kashmir

“Hurdy Gurdy Concert Tour"

buddy larsen said...

I don't often read anything quite so wonderful. As always with Iron's work, the imagery lights up from the inside, slowly filling with warmth and color--and in the poetry as in life, darkened a little at the margins, by the little bittersweet notes of passing time. I wouldn't know a major talent from a shoe--but Jamie, you're either there or knockin' on the door.

Doug said...
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Doug said...

Geez, try to get Buddy to admit he can write also by posting a clunker for comparison with your poetic comment, but no such luck.
When is the Bud going to post some of his work?

Jamie Irons said...

David,

I didn't know that about DeBakey. The father of my college roommate, Charles Andrew Armbrust II, (C.A. Armbrust III being my roommate) was a cardiology colleague of DeBakey's. Dr. Armbrust died this past July at 88.

Jamie Irons

buddy larsen said...

ok, Doug:

"It was a dark and stormy pineapple...."

Ahg, muse unamused.