h o m e........

p a s t   i s s u e s....

s u b m i s s i o n s....

l i n k s

BRENDA HILLMAN

SACRAMENTO DELTA

My anarchist talks while i’m driving
      (i’m tired but she is thriving--)
        beside pylons in flood plains, near
            marshes, culverts & storm drains, in
                 amethyst mornings & clear, past exiled
                    gulls, veils of oil, sooty dancers
                       & streams that are sometimes enough.
                   We must do something but what,
                she asks. Pheasants fly into ditches; 
           fields bubble & broaden. The unknown 
       Future waits wrapped in itself like  
  a larvae, almost alive & awake--

IN THE TRANCE

A pretty anarchist said to me 
It’s not that a great love happens    
What happened became your great love

Her echo had an ancient glow & so   
proved buoyant for my little craft

I left the world & felt a world

The bee loading its gloves with powder
The albatross wanting one thing from the sea

Nothing can wreck our boat said she

& when the water felt the glacier
The future held a present tense
The present held a future without cease

Light said   If the tablets
are written with silence
what good is a prophecy
 
Light said   Let’s be 
like the mirror we found 
in the leaf why don’t we

or, that’s what 
summer said it said
 
when we made time 
past twenty azure frogs 
in the pond — or, when 
we held time’s arrows

Have you lost your
way with technique?

(Try pitching between 
other styles  
why don’t you.)

Night is young but doesn’t 
lack experience; your hope 
flies over the field:
little voice, little fact,

bracelet of signs 
for the unknown—