Instructions for a Life


Cleave to the sting of each sharp sliver.
Measure all the pain.
It also brings a kind of pleasure

to savor strength, weaving weal from woe,
cleaving to past pain’s sharp sliver,
the sting you never could outgrow.

A needle travels to the heart
and brings fresh measure of the pain
that altered everything and made a start

of what you are and what you know.
You’ll find a painful kind of pleasure
mustering wisdom out of hurt, a subtle glow.
 
So cleave to that sharp sliver; don’t just grieve.
Measuring pain and finding pleasure,
you’ll grow around it as a tree
enfolds old scars in new bark’s sleeve.

previously published by Houseboat 
 


Fremont Station


Wild cries echo in brown hills.
I’ve cracked the crust of ancient riverbeds.
The sharp sound echoes still.
 
A bobcat, one paw on its kill,
raises its sleek striped head,
listening: wild cries echo in these hills.

The old road has dropped six feet,
or so the guide has said…
and now it seems the sharp sound echoes still.

Purple swaths of Chinese Houses spill
down the ravine and into tire treads.
Wild cries echo in brown hills.

Where brushfires burned last April, finches trill.
Snapping tongues of flame have turned the trees to lead:
in withered branches, sharp sound echoes still.
 
Shifting stacks of boulders test my skill,
patterned sand like scales of fish long dead.
Old cries echo in brown hills;
hear them: sharp sound echoes still.


​AUTHOR'S NOTE: Fremont Station is a trail near me, in Orange County CA, where I took part in a wilderness writing workshop in 2010.
reprinted from A Likely Story (Moon Tide Press, 2014).