Tritone Life

by Christopher Raley

They gather to build the fire,
men of older dreams, men of dead dreams.
Talk is out of mouths that hear to a world unseen,
and fingers feel with knowing eyes use of axe and wood.
Laughter comes just before the joke is punched.

Around them forest stretches and holds scared and quiet creature’s
frozen eyes, through gnarled manzanita and drooping hands of pine
hidden beholding heavy steps and strange, jagged rhythms of voice.

Beyond them forest stretches over patient deaths
of fallen trunks sprouting rising falls.
And peace is as many moments of silence
until fear of alien perseverance drives out to word.

So at last I left the moment’s sanctuary
to cross the dusty road where evening yet lingered
and their voices were soundings in deep water.

In the trees again I hurry to the call of men around the fire,
men of older dreams, men of dead dreams,
a circle of wrinkled palms yearning toward the flame.

by Christopher Raley

Hills that were California brown
and held rich in folds of laden heat
and gave a scrub oak’s worth of shade
against sun and dust;

hills that were fire black
and held rich on islands in devastated calm,
having given oaks to bare the brunt
and wilt yellow who were too close to flame

are hills that are newly grown,
regenerate who owes to no man scars of her rebirth—
how she labored under God’s slow contract
and pushed up nutrient earth
around those preserved on malnourished soil.

So oaks are umbrellaed dots on hillsides,
amber as a row of open graves.
Theirs is not decided what may yet be life or death.

by Christopher Raley

The moon is a dirty yellow basket
low on the edge of night’s walk
where two wanderers carry it to sky
or fall in with its horizontal suicide.

What evil is it craves this for a sign?
Futures shift in swing of possible
like a world of shadow in arc of a lamp.
And the moon is born aloft by the wanderers.

Futures swing from one to the other.
Evil fears death of longing
which curses dark for absence of blessing.
And the moon looks about to catch the wanderers.

What blessing is it grits its teeth when the lamp
sets alight a thousand paths to one hated direction?

by Christopher Raley

The man who smokes holds his thoughts with finger tips
and rolls them like the rosary beads of morning.
Every slip of action, every fault of line
is a meditation for the great strength of always future.

Last week burdens clutter spaces of now
like little shards of broken glass landscape the road.
The man takes them in, one by one, slow fingers at his lips,
and draws thoughts upon the debts at his feet.

Last week clouds clear blue and dying green to shine brighter
a contrast that will grey and brown hills for summer.
The road that climbs between the market and the church,
the dark-trunked olive trees that shade the blinkless goat chewing—
life is a frame for staring while time taps ashes to pavement.

Sometimes a car crosses the fault-line of past to horizon,
and the man who smokes purses his lips and points his squint toward freedom.

by Christopher Raley

Oracle speaks in the living room while wind
beats huddled houses with her fury.
Thelonious: Again now tell us of peace you find
in misery’s laughter, humiliation’s pride.

But can you speak beauty as bare-skin light of dawn
unveils valley parchment its smear of sight?
Or is yours only for laughter at the south road
shining its golden rush between winter fields brown and fallow?

The river has a mischief too, its course slowly
to bend and upset orchards carefully squared.
Far hills like wrinkled canvass spread their jest below
blue silk torn of edge and splotched by the white hand.

Are there any here you can voice
through the urban angles of your ironic malice?
The oracle has no need but a faint breath of harmony.
For he too will rise east—and the fire-scarred land

where pines stretch charred bones for no song or shade,
and manzanita are the frozen black frenzy
of muttering old women who’ve only themselves left to hate.

by Christopher Raley

It’s hard to resist him in the tiled shower
where water beats closing crease of mouth
(and storm beats doors of the house)
and etchings are hieroglyph of memory.

It’s hard to ignore his empty desk and
absent tools of pastime tagged and marked,
or his laugh at the table, a deaf old man
who echoes off tiles and shuttered windows.

Or it’s his bitterness growling in rain gutters
while the headlands all are dark like primitive man,
and wind beats gloomed houses and square,
and rain is a bestial hand risen from the ocean.

Tomorrow we will see his ghost in the forest where we walk
and keep an eye on the water for a shadow of storm.