Richard Jarrette – And Bee

Profile Jarrette LEP&W April 2021

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Live Encounters Poetry & Writing April 2021.

Richard Jarrette is author of Beso the Donkey (2010)–Gold Medal Midwest Independent Publishers Association for Poetry 2011; A Hundred Million Years of Nectar Dances (2015); The Beatitudes of Ekaterina (2017)The Pond (2019); and Strange Antlers (Parlor Press/Free Verse Editions, Fall, 2021). Jarrette writes a monthly poetry column for VOICE Magazine of Santa Barbara, California, and lives semi-reclusively in the Central Coast region of California after formative years in the Southern Appalachia Highlands of Western North Carolina where he is also considered a regional writer. His books received advance praise from W.S. Merwin, Jane Hirshfield, Joseph Stroud, and Sam Hamill. Beso the Donkey has been translated to Chinese by Yun Wang who also translated Su Dong Po to English in Dreaming of Fallen Blossoms: Tune Poems of Su Dong Po (White Pine, 2019).


And Bee

Recluse
quiet
hears
the mountain
arrive
leaf
return
to earth

___________

Gaze fixed
between the ears
of a horse

neck turns—
beyond the tail
a figure

mist

__________

Evening—
the waxing
November moon

unhindered
not knowing
its name

__________

And bee
investigating
toes

what say
your dance
in the honey

__________

Leaf falls
left

its shadow
right

blink
of the pendulum—

a door

_________

Two streams
flow into a lake

pierced a little
by light

near its mud
in the glance of a fish

the faint glint
of Venus

__________

Dear bird
the camouflage
was working
to perfection
until the leaves
all fluttered
not you

__________

The dry-paper
riffling buzzard
feathers louder

__________

Also mortal
serpentine rock
lichens feeding
on your face

__________

Winter storm
white pelicans

from the high plains
of central Canada

Big Sur jade
below the headland

treacherous
the secret caves

__________

Winter’s
mysterious colors

spring has
yet never said

__________

The absence
of cabbage butterflies

you know this
butterfly

__________

Even

the violet-hued
hummingbird

withdraws its tongue
stills the wings

and dreams

__________

Dust gathers
on the seas

late migrants
meet the early

in strange weather
birdsong—

no answer

__________

Night
and day

light
through

the
keyhole

__________

The day gave a thin cry
and let down its wings

__________

Earth

riffling through dead
leaves and grass

tender-curious

searching
for the spring brides

_________

Every day
the white lion

has been here
unseen

until two
hawks circled

__________

A heart of stone
filled with fire

required says
the stone world

against enemies
but the moon

__________

The crow says
evening has beautiful feet

spring poppies and silver
lupine near

__________

Wildflowers rise
by the road

people slow down
for colors

and perfumes
for deep memories

of a long voyage
to Ithaka

__________

Where

directions
simple
6
somewhere
between

water
and duck

__________

Today
everything
an enigma

today
a red-tail
is the horse

__________

Tonight
is it you little soul

and the moon
shepherding stars

behind rainy
clouds

__________

Be
wanton
spring

spangled
delirious
long


© Richard Jarrette