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