What the Bears Do
If this is a dream
I will open the eyes
of my eyes before
life kills us all.
I want to see
what the bears do.
I open the ears
of my ears when
there is a dear hum
or sound of grinding
that burns. The bears
hear it too. The bears
are not dancing.
They may surround us
with their large smell
of hot fur or drop
to the ground, lope off
into woods
we did not know
were there until
the bears claimed them.
We have received
from the bears
something of fur
of the woods of knowing
in our blood but
what about
when blood
is gone?
What then?
Then I will wait
for the tiger
sure to come.
I am not prey.
I will follow
and not be mazed
by that hungry
chthonic gaze.
It may be
that any death
should feed somebody,
but in my family
we burn our dead.
Journey For a Monday
Monday and suddenly
I feel an intense longing
for the desert. This has nothing
to do with it being Monday
except that now the week rolls
out in dullest weather: warm,
humid, with insipid breezes.
But in the desert all glows
golden, dry and deadly.
Step with care,
breathe deep. This crisp
air livens lungs
full up with life’s exhaust.
Here’s a heat that can
burn out despair.
Shade means more than comfort,
maybe survival. What’s
pretty comes with spines, fangs,
and often, venom. Here
if anything rots it’s
a dry rot, and it’s time.
Here, so much is clear.
Soon there’ll be
a flash flood down
this arroyo. Hear
the thunder crack?
Downwind you can
smell the lightning.
Stand well back
and quickly.
Water means something
here too, either death
or life, nothing less.
Mother, bring me
some juniper, some
red sand from the wash.
Let me rub it on my skin
so I know origin deeper
than the telling
and let me walk
with those oldest silent
tales the stars tell
to the sun.
when it changes
the voices of dust have ruled our time
our ears know nothing but desiccation
so what is this susurration, this drumming,
what are these fat splats? are those
rivulets streaming past the door? I swear I hear
the cows sing hymns
oh glory
swiftly now empty buckets are filled,
the mail arrives, the purse fattens,
the answer is yes, the fruit
colors up with bees and hands
are sticky with juice
a miracle, for clear water to fall
a miracle of mud of bowing limbs
of leaking roofs and the open mouths
of thirst startled dry of words
silence hears only laughter
unleashed in the sated fields
Forgotten
one thing we’ve forgotten
is how splendid it is for each
to have a frog. your frog can sit
in your bathtub, or you can make a
small habitat for your frog with water
rocks and bugs. inside or out your frog
will sing to you though it may take a while
for the frog to compose the appropriate arias
meant for you and you alone. when it does though
you will suddenly drop everything you are doing and
listen to the most glorious hypnotic love song, a love song
to the whole universe but to you as that universe, and without
any words the frog will convey to you that you and you alone have
a unique and precious role to play in the unfolding of all that is to happen
next. as you listen to this magical singing you realize that you have known
what to do all along, that it is just exactly what you have always done and been
doing and all is well, and the frog has given you permission to be your own deity
and the wonder of it is how very good this feels even though nothing at all has changed
except that, now, you have your frog.
Kyla Houbolt (@luaz_poet) has only recently begun sending out work though she has been writing for years. You can find recent work in Issue #22 of Neologism Poetry Journal, and forthcoming in the summer issue of The Hellebore, and the premiere issue of Black Bough Poems. Kyla lives and writes in Wilmington, NC, USA.