We know there are a lot of poems here! Please read one or two-- we'd love that. We did not want to post them all individually--there are so many! We'll make a chapbook of these. Just Kibbe was the one who brought this exhibit to my attention. We both went to the celebration of Milford Zorne's 100th bithday last week-- then wrote at the Milford Zornes exhibit at the Pasadena Museum of California Art, on each of the 20 paintings. Look through both of our eyes at the same art!!

I. The Bishop’s Place, 1969

no Bishop, in sight
fields, sectioned by fences
forests, delineated
by distant mesas, low
rising foothills, the barn
and outbuildings
unused machinery, one horse
a place worth dwelling

--Just

The horse is alone
he has no words
but uses his shadow as a mirror
while beyond the still tractor
the ranch and pasture
gathered haystacks
overgrown foothills
the evergreen silence of distance
mountains and not knowing
if anyone is home

--Kath

II. Morning in Manzanillo, 1979

only morning
and the waiting ships
their imagined bustle
impatient as early afternoon
early risers on the shore
stare back waking
horses and people pace
at low tide
ignoring everything

--Kath

people, horses, people
boats, people, gulls
ships, sand, rocks
ocean, people and smog
dirtying the sunrise

--Just




III. High Seas, 1969

painting from land or boat
small land in distance
big waves encroaching
white, dark blue night waves
the light of the moon
giving shadow to show size
rain on the horizon

--Just

alone with this sea
the mystery of the crashing
first hints
of moonglow
the sudden blush
of what will be-
the highest wave

--Kath




IV. Calm Afternoon, 1973

one man, three boats
a maze of piers
perhaps his home
among them
the day is friendly
and quiet I imagine
though the man’s head
may be busy with worry

--Just


one golden rowboat
among these others
invites my restless step
into it
who will go
out past the stillness
of stilted shadowed pier
where an old man in his old craft
gives his patient look
to shore to see
if there is anyone

--Kath

V. Cuyama Valley, 1972

lush shadows
of clouds into the hills
trees are repeated syllables
that pile long sentences
they've left the simple goldleafed garden
to climb up to the low grey immensity
I will not follow them
into the heightened storm

--Kath

hills and forests, a fence
my childhood drawn
one road in, and out
many places to hide

--Just



VI. Bahia Escondido (1984)

my yellow boat
I keep it
by the town
at rocky divide
between lush green and blue
five counts of emptiness
(the other boats)
wait offshore
I've hauled mine up
to paint it's hull
with sunlight

--Kath


the edge
of water
of land
of man
the sky’s details
in the sand
disguise what I
hope is mutual
envy––the human experience
always wanting more
at the edge of what we have
what we cannot keep

--Just

VII. Dawn at Isola Bella, 1985

the lights of creation
calm the water’s depths
mountains rise, reflecting
and descending, whether
you’re at the top of the ocean
or the bottom of the world
with little people running
about, exercising their minds
their bodies, their ambition
their desire to live forever

--Just

just off-shore
boulder island
outlines blurred
by the old tides
shadowed conversations
amidst stones
darkly whisper
into low clear water
as sunset drops
its silent "oh"
into distant deep

--Kath

VIII. Dingle Bay, Ireland

abandonment of vision
the dark constructions
rotting in the bay
beside new birth
freshly painted vessels
the gulls gossiping
watch their humans
across the bay
unaware that greenery
comes and goes
to the mountains
as to their lives

--Just


into deep blue nearness
fall shadows of stones
and of a boat moored
one among many
I've made it mine
by looking
closed hatch into its hull
of empty waiting
birds gather near it about to land
and there on the far shore
they gather too
signal an opening in the sky

--Kath


IX. The M.S. Gallini, 1980


her arriving departure
knows the flap
of gulls and little timid boats
she unanchors and gathers her crew
knows she's larger
than her destination

--Kath

so big, this manmade beast
still small next to earth’s mountains
beneath her, the ocean begins
and people play at civilization

--Just




X. Lahaina, Maui, 1969

observed, a village
through the jungle
quiet, until the people wake

--Just

what silent pool
waiting the untouched bridge
consonant in her pause
the walker steps
into deep green velvet sentence
where tropical mountains make
growth that almost erases
visible habitation

--Kath




XI. Uganda Village, 1987

Hard at work
or hardly living
where does nature end
and civilization begin
always together
growth upon growth


women have made
the clearing
from out of gold meadows
they carry home on thier heads
baskets of sunlight
fruit will soon be yellow in the orchard
they tend the greenness
of everything
their lush thoughts
poised waiting
in the heat


XII. Zion in the Summer, 1980

sculpted monumental inner fire
stone emergence
aglow with idea of form
humble the delicate pale pink
italic trees
they blush with presence

--Kath


a roof no man created
too coarse and handsome
to be designed

--Just
within one man’s lifetime

XIII. Grand Canyon from the North Rim, 1976

three birds claim the sky
Trees cling wherever
gravity cannot defeat them
the earth’s interior
made available, a crack
evidence, the first straw
already bending
civilization over
backwards to live
as nature’s guest
without an army
to fund us

--Just

it's the liveliness of the edge
last leaf tips overhanging the grand canyon
their unseen spill into the sky
mimics birds and distant hills
while eyes mostly fall downward
into a lower immensity
he copies the inscription
of wind-torn bark
on a nearby tree
does it say
manzanita
to the gorge below

--Kath



XIV. Tijuana, Mexico, 1958

a vantage point
see the blush of lives
of lives into the hills
connect by brushwork fences
watercoloring homes always
as if in the midst of creation

-- Kath


two dozen crosses
deck out the hills
a modern Golgotha
among colored homes
a thousand christs
each laboring up their hill
at night, they’ll call each other
talking on the telephone lines
they’d hung between each cross
to better understand each struggle

--Just


XV. Guyamus, Mexico, 1952

a natural growth
these buildings
among the contoured
and rough-hewn hills
the people
led by their shadows
adhere to the laws
of their gods

--Just

what long deep words
the mountains roll
on their tongues
rose and green
over the tiny flat-roofed town
where man and donkey
move slowly and women
wrapped in concentration
are mute and making shadows

--Kath

XVI. Barcelona, 1978

loud at Sagres
by the Hotel Avenida Palace
collective lives
a paintbox
the bustle blurs
into multicolor mix
visible conversation
vivaciousness of midday
at the crossing

--Kath

the city’s frontispiece
a lamppost
People by the hundreds
worship a nature
their ancestors built

--Just

XVII. The Meeting Place, 1956

a fountain
and a mountain range
of homes – 2, 3 and 4 stories
the sky ignored
unless giving gifts
otherwise obtained
at the fountain

--Just

fountained anywhere
reflective singulars
their shadows cluster closer
than the figures that drop them
draped women
sombreroed men
gargoyled totem
water spills its continuous white hush
into the colorful
collective lonliness

--Kath




XVIII. Gold Town, 1972

calligraphy of their raised arms
gold draped the almost
bare trees the shape of waves spent
with feeling on the near shore
unseen inhabitants
cluster in small homes against the grandeur
their faceless windows watching
evergreens marching up the mountain
into the purple clouds

--Kath

three buildings, attached
at the base of the valley
in front, a lake
nature’s gold leaves
gild generously

--Just

XIX. Winter in Mt. Carmel, n.d.

again the fence
protecting, defending
instigating nature
to unleash her
weapon of entropy
no man’s hands
no bird’s song
no tree’s foliage
will outlast the force
their mother inherited
to create them

--Just

only the birds
watch shadows
of living bare
branches drawn in snow
hear the brittle wind song
dark percussion
of their wings
spread the sky

--Kath


XX. Low Tide at Doheny, 1960

flying white
at low tide
unveiled faces
on dark cliffs stare
pale shadows deepen
below on shore
colorful swimsuits wear people
like collected seashells
all wait with darting feeding birds
the gleanings

--Kath

blue, light and dark, waves
lap at the feats
of awed humans
dipping their toes in her wonder

--Just

02/04/2008

Author's Note: all twenty now complete...

Posted on 02/05/2008
Copyright © 2024 Kathleen Wilson