SageGreenJournal.org
voices out of the West, mostly poetry, personal to planetary
Latif Harris
San Francisco, California
Barter Within the Bark of Trees
by Latif Harris
Poet, visual artist, and Vajrayana Buddhist, Latif William Harris, lives, writes and performs his work in San Francisco's Lower Haight neighborhood. His tenth book, Barter Within the Bark of Trees,: First Will and Testament, Poems of Aging and Memory is forthcoming from Duende Press, of Placitas, New Mexico.
I have been visiting the worlds
between sleep and awakening
the worlds of vapor trails
and watermelons
salt air and acacia
where intellect surrenders to curiosity
all her rigid demands
sounding of a soft hammer
against a bell
a bell which will not sound
a bell whose resonance
resides in the dawn
I have been visiting the worlds
of a thousand islands
strung together like beads
encircling the languid heart of a
leopard
which contains photographs
of distant planets
with violet mountains and orange skies
I have been out there so long
that maps have begun weeping
blistering noons
frozen in the rings of Bristlecone Pine
arboreal quills stopped in mid-air
like bolts of green lightning
Intransigent as a porcupine
yielding as a woman
made of water and air
invisible as the print of a sparrow’s foot
on a frosted piece of white marble
I have been out there so long
that rescue has become unnecessary
the drone of helicopters has settled down
with the bees
the shouts of the rescue party
are drowned by the leaves
in the domain of morning
when activity replaces me
I will fall asleep
on a carpet of dark dreams
and barter within the bark of trees