— a proffered collective noun

        Birthed singly, in pairs or, rarely, sets

        sometimes with a brother or, rarely, two

        alone or in a bevy

                sisters link

                        to one another and all of life

        in ties of blood

                that reach beyond the grave

        in spite of hate

                that stains our holy souls

        in cries of pain

                that soar to springs of song

        in eyes of strength  

                that see beyond the day

                        through all the searing firestorms time

                        the resistance of our sisters has persisted

        through anonymous

                days    nights    years    lifetimes

        of suppression

                through the isolation

        of their blood

                through the darkness

        of their pain

                through the deaths

        of sisters    brothers    mothers

                through the murder

        of their children

                through rape

        of bodies    minds    souls

                through the selling

        of their strength

                through abuses of the wars

        of ever-angry men

                through all their pride

        of place replaced

                through all the lives in fear

        of death that drips

                through veins like chemo

        of strength renewed

                through heart

                        the pain endured

        they nonetheless persisted,

                revenant trees

        regrown beyond

                the fire and the axe

        to rise above

                their ravaged bodies, born

        to heights unreachable

                by mere men                                 

        yet dreamt of

                        in the red tents of the mothers

        dreamt of

                        in the blood-sweat of their labor

        dreamt of                                                                             

                        in the dust of chattel-fields

        dreamt of

                        in angry urban kitchens

        dreamt of

                        in the books that were not written

        dreamt of

                        in forgotten ones that were

        dreamt of

                        in the silent pride of weaving  

            plowing    rooting    hauling    feeding    caring

        and loving

                        even in the face of pain

        and loving 

                        even as the village burned

        and loving

                        even as the children died

        and loving

                        even as they gave their lives

                                    for people who still haven’t learned to love

                                            as from the crimson sea within

        she rose again

                        to make the family strong the children laugh

                        to set the world aright and make it one

        she rose again

                        to feel the living skin beneath her touch

                        and sing her pleasured song for all to hear

        she rose again

                        to touch her sister’s mind her brother’s tears

                        and sleep unknown to fear though knowing death

        she rose again

                        to see the future solid as the truth

                        and find the source of love within us all

        she rose again

                        to shine and be a light for all to see

                                to give forgive    

                                        and heal the wounded world

        again she rose

                        to know  to weep  to reach  to gain  to shine

                                  to sweat  to bear  to grow  to judge  to learn

        again she rose

                        to sow  to reap  to sing  to reign  to find

                                  to laugh  to come  to run  to fly  to burn

                with life unto herself withal in full

        to be again

                            the living earth we dream of in our hearts. 

—The /tEmz/ Poetry Review, March, 2024, https://www.thetemzreview.com/bickford.html

Time lives

as digits on a number line.

Now is zero    and now    and now   and now

the no in now a shadow looming long

zero the hinge the holder of place

where all moments exist

before they are gone.

Melody

sequences of numbers

frequencies of waves

energy moving

through fluid in space

   zero in music lives only as silence.

Fibonacci

used the term zephyrum

the empty west wind 

in tennis we say love   

l’oeuf     the egg

pregnant

with the cipher of the future

yet nil   the empty set   signifying zilch.

Life

the tick of all the hearts that beat

at once

emerges in the moment now

fleeting harmony in forms

the endless helix-song

without attack   cadence   motive or rest.

We are

nothing that has ever been

becoming

what could never be

all

that has ever been

becoming

all that ever will

alive

in an infinite

zero.

—excerpted in The Humboldt Senior News, October, 2022

This is the last time we will paint the house.

                                    Up a ladder

                  staring into sun   back bent          

back,                              

hanging on to asphalt-shingled edges.

In one hand a loaded brush drips grey

            the other grips the apex of the peak

            where two long rails come together in a seam—

                        a place of moss and lichen, desiccated  

                        wood and curling paint chips—warm black-tar

                        breezes waft up the roof-pitch and blast my face.

I feel

            the vent breathe stale attic air

            dry heat on my groin  

            the sun on my neck

            the sweat of my fear

            the ladder leaning slightly as I work

I see

            children in the neighbor’s yard

            the street    parked cars    the pastures beyond.

I cling.   I daub.   I make no sudden moves.

Another spider parachutes by

            swept from her crevice

            covered in paint and doomed.  

I imagine

            falling to the concrete

            my injuries

            the ways I could land I would survive

            the ways I would not

wet fear washes over and covers me.

                                                     I will never paint this house again.

Now the primer coat is drying.

Twice more I’ll climb the ladder to that peak

                            then easier jobs,

            Deborah to her prep and me to siding,

                        but one more peak awaits me in the front

                                    dread drips down upon me

I accept the fact that I might die painting our house.

                                    I see it in my mind

                 yet climb that ladder again and again

each time feeling my unluckiest fate.

            Clear images of my destruction help

            keep my footing, reach, and breathing mindful

            center of gravity unextended

            balance held with an outward squeeze of calves,

            shins and sides of feet against the runners

                                                                                               firm my purchase.

Our house was built of boards milled new in ’72.

            scraping gouges show just two coats since.

We attack what little rot we find

            so it may live to see many more hues

                        before the quake the fire and the flood

                                                                      but not applied by me.

This death defiance is suburban testament

to how much homeowners

love their partners.

I guess I really would die for mine.

I’d do the same things as a widower. If never wed

perhaps I’d have no home.

            I know of two men who fell from ladders doing house repair

                        one died on the spot from his injuries

                                       his wife destroyed

                              the other is painfully disabled

                                          now on opioids

yet up I go and go again until

            our home’s revived with colors, trim and eves,

                        the wood preserved beyond my days.

Surely, I’d pitch in

            to paint the house again

                        if we were younger.

Not that my fears will get the best of me—

            I’ll never put my foot down and refuse,

and we won’t come into sudden money

            no longer feel the need to save

                        by doing it ourselves—

it’s that we will either be too feeble

            or dead by the time it needs doing.

                                    Some nights we feel almost there already

but now we’re nearly done.

We prop each other in our waning strength,

            proud of our deeds and dedication

                        in this seventh decade

                            but we dead ache.

Pride and the beauty of the finished job

            do not smooth the stiffness,

            clear the bruises, only serve

                to make them tolerable.

The life within upholds this roof these walls.

                                    So we laugh.

We let the ache of bones give way to mirth.

There is no better way to see this task

            begun before our time and never done;

Sisyphi who will never see the top

            will never be rolled over by our rock.

                        We will roll on its floor in drunken glee

but we will never paint this house again.

               — Poets and Writers, College of the Redwoods, 2012

Creaking, groaning, both as one,
a howl of laughter, crack
of sudden grief, a deep exchange
of growling sobs, an argument of ringing
timber strings, soaring high-hoarse
baritone, then rumbling
bass to shake the forest floor—

the two madrones had long ago caressed
away their paper bark and pressed
their human-shining skins until
they strained against the heartwood at their cores,

their separate paths to light
a century in mute acceptance
of their intertwining lives, now grown
together at the mid-point of their trunks,
and joined in joy and pain, they bow
as one before the virtuous winds that bow
them each against the other’s inner grain
in spires of ascending song,
the children of their roots.

                    —Toyon, vol 28, 2012

The brombeern stain that now
nut-brown will neither wash
nor wash away,
her Hessish humors mulling
with my huckleberry wine—

crimson on crimson
on passion to rust, red
the keening flow upon the ground—
whether of the vein or of the vine
the dye is set, the serum dry.

Pricking finger, wrist,
bloody juices, lick
the salt sweet wound
and feel the gritty blossom
burr across your tongue,

but hold the bleeding treasure
fast, regain the sticky grip
in pain, and squeeze the living
paint onto the page,
and press the scarlet ink to fit
the meaning of its seed.

(In memory of Guy Kuttner)

Kingfisher. Kingfisher, where
have you gone?
Barrel chested, blue banded
boister, sharing your best,
your crop always full for us.
Upstream to the source,
to the mountain and sky?
Down to the slough,
to the marsh, to the mouth?

Kingfisher. Kingfisher, who
did you see?
Perched in your madrone
along the river, glimmers
in the dimmest water,
children in the dark,
the needs of others as your own
and love inside us all.

Kingfisher. Kingfisher, when
was it last?
I saw you late a rainy day,
wired bird, ruff against the wind,
beaky smile—Tchrrt, Tchrrt,
and I wanted to fly with you,
join your quest for light,
live on the river and the mountain,
fishing love and greatness from the land.

Kingfisher. Kingfisher, why
is it now?
Of all the nows that could be,
we are here within the darkness of your wake,
but we have been with you,
your singing, booming,
flashing glory, bear hugs with your wings,
and know our souls are deeper for your song.

Kingfisher. Kingfisher, who
are we now?
We remaining, huddled, gaudy
in our meaningless plumage,
signifying nothing but our
terror of the dark.

Kingfisher. Kingfisher, what
shall we do?
Be the ones we hope you thought we were,
your most optimistic
vision of the possible,
your laughing voice within our hearts,
and live as if it mattered to the earth.

Kingfisher. Kingfisher, where
have you gone?
I hear your call—Tchrrt, Tchrrt, echo
still against the pages of the water,
in the arch and reach of trees, intertwined
with memories, heartwood in the grain,
of beauty strong and gentle,
with a softness in the soil of your roots
that lets the lives of we remaining thrive
all the more for your having been alive;
so that we may sing, Kingfisher,
sing as we go, as we all shall go,
flying to the mountain, to the mouth,
to the delta of the sky, and out
into the open sea again.

               — Abandoned Mine, February, 2022

https://www.abandonedmine.org/wrens-and-rents-michael-bickford

A child, our little wren

and we the ‘rents

and then another

and now they are children

offered to each other from our selves

held and released breaths

let out and taken in like old genes,

a hem on a hand-me-down

growing as they do

like mushrooms after rain

unnoticed but for absence

how big they have become

rounder fuller

louder stronger

the tenor and texture of their voices

your voice and mine

and theirs their own from others

never heard by us as we let them go

sending them out on the lead

of our words and our love

yet there they are in you

in the mirror, on the screen

and in my dreams more real

than when we are together

now that we no longer stare

incredulous and smitten as we were

so we study each other

for their features

each of them in us and both in each

my mother’s eyes and mine

your father’s mouth and yours

their scents once so sweet and shared

a burst of blue bouquet

now a glancing waft in greeting

don’t smell me daddy she had said

their touch so cliché-soft,

a baby’s derriere, their hair

untousled now, apart within

their social lives

       their I’s

their very beings

offered to the world

to their lovers and their friends

   and sometimes

in these our fullest moments

to the ‘rents.