Adam David Miller
(USA)
Once Loved
They say if you ever loved, there is
always some love left. Through the storms
you do remember sun. What is there,
now that flesh and bone have given way
to ashes, dust to dust?
How now to recall one summer evening,
dusk on the horizon, high above
the rocky precipice, two pairs of eyes
one pair grey, one black
swing slowly from each other
to the sea and back?
July 6, 2002
I Hoped You Would Stay
I wanted you to come and you did.
You came and you stayed,
then you left.
I hoped you would come and you came.
You came, you stayed and stayed,
then you went away.
I prayed you would come but you didn’t.
I begged you to come but you wouldn’t.
I look to see the sway in your walk,
or your skip. After all, it is Spring,
when sap rises, and geese return.
You took our dream when you left,
When you left you took my breath.
I see them now these words of love
implanted under the hill, that opened
the leaf, the bud, the flower,
the forever never words no doubt can faze.
You go but you can never leave.
Spirit is in the rock, the tree,
rush of the wind, the sea.
I wanted you to come, you came,
you did, and stayed, in me.
San Francisco Bio-Regional
I am at home in The City,
move around mostly on foot or by train; find it
too dangerous to ride my bicycle.
The peregrine falcon loves The City’s
Mutual Life Benefit building, dives from its top
at 200 mph to snatch and scatter pigeons
who shit on critical mass cyclists
bunched at Freedom and Bind.
These cyclists, brash, young and brave,
brave pigeon-shit, cop-batons
and the screams of grid-locked drivers.
The falcons play good offense:
Take what the defense gives you.
Pigeons flutter, fall; falcons plunge, perch,
feed them to open-mouthed young
screaming for benefits.
waiting on Mutual Life .
Pigeons need protection,
insurance against falcons.
Signs on the building promise insurance
against earthquakes, floods, even famine –
but falcons, peregrine falcons?
I want insurance
against Mutual Life.
Time is a Life Drawing Artist
Time is a life drawing artist,
using age to sculpt arms, hips, legs
that drop straight down, rivulets
through the map of my face.
Time, age, these givers and takers,
maul me. I would like to say they give
more than they take. My curves, bounce,
sharpness of eye, for a different sight,
not only muscles that cramp, bones that ache.
Time is a life drawing artist. Artists experiment
in search of a new order. We expect some
of these experiments to fail.
Trips to the Beach and the Barre
There is democracy at work
on a beach and
at an exercise barre.
No place to hide. All your
money can not unpot your round belly
or puff out your shrunk shank.
The young and healthy see themselves
as the aristocrats of these spaces.
Youthful bodies claim center stage,
while their owners swagger
in appearances all too brief.
They ignore the short life of fully
formed flowers as they strut.
Time, nature’s blessing, also is its curse.
No one escapes.
Such frenzy in their motions,
as though they fear their magic mirror
will show them transformed to slack-bellied
proletariat too soon.
Lauren
of the upbeat « hello »
though shy, says, « Look at me. »
willing to boost
while needing a boost
herself
late student,
dancer, swift
humming bird
her totem
driven
striving to make up
for time lost
growing
prides her competence
counts their money
as she would
her own
« like handling any other paper. »
dreams many lives
when she thinks
no one watches
elbow on counter
chin in
palm of hand
eyes beyond
the street
buildings
the sky
would love
to be harbored
but working
and willing
to sail
____________________________
ADAM DAVID MILLER
Has worked in support of the arts community of Northern California for four decades as writer, teacher, editor, publisher, radio & television programmer and producer,poet & memoirist. His Dices or Black Bones, 1970 was named best anthology by the California Association Teachers of English; Forever Afternoon, 1953 was awarded the Naomi Long Madgett first national poetry award; his memoir, Ticket to Exile, was finalist in the Northern California Book Awards for creative non-fiction and a finalist in the William Saroyan International Literary Competition both in 2008; was awarded the Berkeley Poetry Poetry & Arts Festival and PEN-Oakland Lifetime Achievement Awards. He is at work on Fall Rising, Exile to Odyssey, Ticket’s sequel. Miller is at home in Berkeley is at home with his wife philosopher sound healer S. Elise Peeples and his cat Momentito Morris.