BEFORE THE FIRST BUD
I'll call him the Cheer-e-o' tree,
He has a kink in his leg,
It sets his high step dancing.
Branches lay long and straight,
Not at right angles,
How did he get a foot to kick in the air?
My very own prancing jester,
Juggles honey-crisp in the fall,
Spine arching low to the east,
Hair flying, his head tipped to the earth,
He listens, patiently blowing kisses,
To the scrambling creatures below.
—G. B. Congdon
7th March 2019
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SLOWLY, SLOWLY
When we made love,
Every hour of the day,
Birds set upon that white cloud,
On the flagship of surrender.
When each sentence began with,
I feel hunger, and I feel thirst,
Measured by metaphor, wit, and pun,
And ending with sexual innuendo.
Then we stood naked,
In the bright light of day,
Doing some very heavy sledding,
Unable to look away.
—G. B. Congdon
4th December 2018
Some things need no explanation. But there is almost always one. Love begets greater love and welcomes all frailty. One must disturb the universe to find true love, which wears many guises. If the songbird sang, to hear himself sing, I love him still.
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Jumping in on December's imminent arrival, I was in full-moon pregnancy mode for three November's, awaiting babes born on either side of the winter solstice... and one by osmosis, as Ming was born in China, a late November child. I wrote this by moonlight, awoken, rightly so, by November's full moon.
PAUSED FOR JUST A MOMENT
I am the Madonna and the Vestal Virgin,
The Black Madonna, Gaia, and Sophia, too.
Everything uttered by the force of creation—
Into pitch black darkness.
To the soil once fallow, now fruitful,
To the loss of self, to benefit another,
To the ox at the anvil, to the ritual of the moon—
And sleeping wonder.
My womb is fertile,
I am earthen, all-knowing, gentle, and wise,
Purveyor of secrets, I roll like a tempest,
Both profound and startling—
Let nothing stand in my way.
—G. B. Congdon
29th November 2018
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On Quartered Wing
I know him by his plaintive cry,
It splits the dappled heaven,
Here live the Gray Ghost and me,
From my window I watch,
The Northern Harrier write upon the sky.
Like one who welds past and present,
I tend the meadow with hound by my side.
It's a sober world,
Of pregnant peals, and parted bramble,
The hawk lords over.
The Gray Ghost needs no cover,
His shoulders are broad quartering wide.
The hour has grown dark November unveils her tempest,
Fields shudder beneath a blanket of gold,
And the quiet wanderer flames the fire.
When once we lived in summer's glory,
The bee, hawk, and I,
He dips his wing to the fruitless tree,
And on the pewter dawn,
Bids farewell to raging weather.
I am not captive,
A hundred words walk with me over the boundary.
Beneath clouded moons,
I am rapt,
We are headed to distant skies together.
—G. B. Congdon
13th November 2018
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COUNTERPOINT
Pondering has to do with perspective,
In my better fluid moments
I question the hell out of everything,
the 'why' the world is prosperous
And 'how' it is ringed by poverty.
Destruction, avarice, and lies
And yet, time finds me busy—
Some days indifferent and idle.
I have to get command of my narrative,
Roam the dark areas and illumine the wild.
I'll check the dictionary, Webster knows,
But from Archimedes to Zweig—
I meet definitions of beauty
And symptoms of general malaise,
Striding the gravel crown my footsteps halted.
Back in bed, I don't have an answer,
My lovely darling one,
A conspiracy of ravens beats at my door.
Maybe we've forgotten the marginalized.
Maybe, just maybe, we need houses, not bombs.
—G. B. Congdon
5th October 2017
I dedicate this poem to Buckminster Fuller, and each newly elected official who strives to bridge divides, embrace tolerance and deliver the truth. May we row steady to the other side, with the wind in our face. The birchbark canoe was made by ancestors of my mother's French Canadian family landing on new frontiers in the 17th century. Among them explorers, trappers, and interpreters sailing alongside Samuel de Champlain, forging friendships, adoptions, and more than likely marriages with the Native Americans. I see the Montagnais skirting through forests with their wolf head capes on their heads...
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APOLLO
I am two years old asleep in his arms. My father, Babbo, is 89 this year. I had an idyllic childhood. Lisa and I knew Babbo lived for us. How about the time he came home from a business trip, the late western sun streaming across his Harris tweed jacket lying folded over the green velvet wing-chair, as my five-year-old hands search inside his pockets. It's there, the surprise selected to amuse, beguile, and make our heart's sing. There it is—one small man wearing a driving cap, his hands on the wheel of a mini sports car—top down. Babbo only drives convertibles. And will you look at that on the underbody instead of an axel and tires, it has tentacles like a creature from the deep. Apollo winds it up, in full measure when we play—Babbo becomes Apollo. He does so everytime, we think nothing of it anymore. The season's woodland nymphs stand in the glade, all eyes peeled on his radiant form. The car and driver begin their ascent over the ivory plastered walls of our living room. We squeal. We jump. We run around in circles as the intrepid wayfarer peels blithely along, approaching the ceiling, like a skilled spider he navigates the precipice—he's traveling upside down, his jaunty head bobbing, further still crawls the driver until he runs out of gas—plummeting from the heavens to earth. But he has nothing to fear because he is in Apollo's hands. He'll live to see the light of day. Apollo has more tricks in his bag. After winding it one more time, ever so slightly, the driver begins touring Apollo's forehead—this is the cat's meow—our god wears a tiny man in a chariot for a crown. But wait, the foreign rover left an imprint on passing, marking the outline of a pink road over the middle of his brow which Babbo will wear to the office in the morning. His very own roadmap of love. And Lisa and I, we orbit, take a spin, dodging planets, and miraculously land back on earth at his waiting feet.
—G. B. Congdon
3rd June 2018
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TALKING TO DYLAN
"Hey, Bob."
"Yes, Ma'am."
"Where are you taking me tonight?"
"We're going to the swankiest joint in town."
"I like to dance do you like to dance?"
"Do squirrels gather acorns?"
"Bob, what do you think happens when we die?"
"You weren't listening."
"Yes, I was. You mean that bit about floating souls?"
"Now you're talking and walking."
"Something like a fallen angel wearing Spanish boots. You know what, Bob?"
"No, what?"
"I might go west, and eat pork and beans. Be a wayfarer like you."
"Don't trap your self. Use your critical intelligence to navigate beyond the paradox."
"You want me to reject the banal, and stop being anal. How's that for poetry?"
"Wagon's ho, Jo! Keep your eye on the prize. Make like a tree and leave."
"Old blue-eyes, you are a riot, let nobody tell you otherwise."
And you're pretty as a Georgian peach."
"Aw shucks, you're just saying that to see me blush."
"Oh look, it's starting to rain. Make hay when the sun shines. Make love when it rains!"
"Listen to that do-re-mi falling from sapphire-tinted skies. No stopping it, a hard rain's gonna fall."
"I'm listening, Bob. And sitting here next to you, it looks like smooth sailin' from here on out."
"Kiss me, babe. And when you can spare a dime, give me a call."
"Are we courting and sparking Bob?"
"Most of the time."
—G. B. Congdon
24th May 2018 (Bob's 77th Birthday)
Gemini surround me, my father, Babbo, and husband Johns are born a few days apart. Bob Dylan jump starts the celebration one week early on the cusp of the sign of the twin. I am a Virgo/ Gemini Rising, a double Mercury whammy as Mercury rules both Virgo and Gemini. It is an artistic sign, every love of my life connects with architecture, or making/ building/ creating. Babbo took an aptitude test in his youth; it said he'd make a great architect but being born a child of the Great Depression eclipsed the idea. Johns is a master builder. Dylan makes iron gates and builds castles with words. Gemini generally succeeds and lead a tight ship—don't get in their way. Communication is of vital importance to Gemini. Babbo at 89, drives his BMW around picking up the remaining friends he has left and takes them out for coffee. A Gemini Rising needs to learn detachment, to be their center, not the objects. Gemini is a very ambitious sign, and our ambitions are varied. I am not "into" astrology, but see the proof in many of the discoveries as authentic enough to give respect on some level. After all, we live on a spinning PLANET hung in the vast COSMOS woven with other PLANETS by forces we can't begin to understand. The mystical and magical fit in there somewhere. Oh, by the way, Mercury imparts a fluid gift of gab. Anyway, back full circle to the Gemini men in my life—how many songs has Dylan written? Tonight I have a date with Bob, and I can't find my glass slipper. I am 23 years old in this photo taken at my childhood home—and Cinderella is stepping out—Mother had me try on her wedding dress, the one she sewed herself, from the lining of a cloud—blue to match Babbo's eyes. I just want her to finish up and take the picture.
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THE POET
Praise the bard's success, and each mistake,
He challenges the war-machine,
Inspiring truth to wake,
Soaring naked over the hill and ravine—
Those blue-eyes of sea glass,
Sprung from the seas wild ride,
His pen marks where other's fear to trespass,
Any old song makes a turn and takes a stride—
He forfeited his freedom,
And lives in the shattered realm of fame,
Gifting a map to his inner sanctum,
He makes someone less lonesome—
They hound him like a prophet,
And crown the man with laurels;
Yet, the sighing world cannot repay the poet,
Who is the companion of our vigils—
Stand beneath a tree wearing its first green,
There on the highest branch, a goldfinch sings,
Where many imitate, both raucous and serene,
But Dylan, he lets a note fly, no one else brings—
—G. B. Congdon
24th May 2018
It is 1965, and Dylan has eleven years on Johns, both are Gemini. I saw The Band in 1975, and was already a fan of Dylan. As Marion Davies said to Bing Crosby in the 1933 classic, Going Hollywood,—"I heard you sing, and I'm terribly in love with you." Bob doesn't have to dig around in his pockets for words. Happy Birthday on your magical 77th, beloved Bob.
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NAKED BY COVER
The land where God forgot to shine,
Is under the low hung gray, I inhabit
Despairing the should've, could've, and would've
That death has overcome—
And in the lifting veil, it breaks
That glimmer of ablution circling the earth
That blade penetrating blindness called Spring
Like a halo on the Madonna of creation—
Piercing truth in the eyes of suckling babes,
The falcon-hood lifts,
The banded owlet blinks in wonder
A pool of crystal tears in which to bathe—
Gold and silver, I wear
Famine and plenty, I drink
Remembrance and forgetfulness, I dream
The child teetering towards you is I.
—G. B. Congdon
22 April 2018
Here in the Northeast, we are held in the crossover of early spring, waiting for the full-blown variety. It's a bit like living a dream within a dream. A bit like owning a magical place you've never visited, yet instinctually know nonetheless. A stone ruin serves as the metaphor for places within yet encountered, and for the past decade that's its gift.
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DOG DAY CONFESSIONS
Trust is a thing with a bark and a bite—
That howls down the moon,
And roams an ancient landscape,
And sees with keen insight.
And follows through gale—
And eagerly sidles up to friends of mine,
That thread of understanding,
That builds belief in each other.
I've dreamt it in my brightest joy—
And on my darkest day,
Yet, nothing prepared me for an eternal shadow
Who never asks a smidgeon of me.
—G. B. Congdon
18th April 2018
Our son Joseph in Idaho, 2006, working as a ranch hand at Three Legged Coyote Creek Ranch with his brother.
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