A Dark Figure
A dark figure
stands at the entrance of a lighted church.
Elmer the husky and I
walk the neighborhood at 5:30 AM.
No moon or stars seen in the sky.
I see the figure.
I know it’s a homeless man
because I see the homeless
almost every morning on our walks.
Think about that regularity.
It still astonishes me.
We approach him.
I lead Elmer off the sidewalk
to give us some distance
to go around.
I don’t like feeling that way,
but it happens sometimes.
He’s smoking a cigarette.
He’s tall, young, bearded, contorted.
He’s looking up at the sky,
gesticulating,
pointing,
raging,
but utterly silent.
If there had been stars,
just one,
or the moon,
even a sliver,
I might understand.
There is nothing
but black.
Usually, I say good morning
to the homeless.
Not this morning.
Bark Chip Artist
It’s 5:30 in the morning.
A purple and orange outline
of Mt. Hood forms in the eastern sky.
A planet’s up there, too,
but I can’t name it.
I learned nothing useful
in junior high science.
Worm dissections and
petri dish molds.
Never one lesson
about watersheds.
I walk Elmer the maniacal husky through the park.
Time for another encounter
with the homeless.
Perhaps walk into
an arresting image
to inspire a poem.
We pass a young homeless
man smoking a cigarette
and fiddling on his phone.
I say good morning.
He doesn’t look up.
No poem there.
Fifty yards later,
a homeless man approaches.
He walks crooked and shuffling.
We meet.
I say good morning.
He grunts something
in return
I don’t catch it
but I think it
sounded cordial.
Nothing like a cordial grunt
for a greeting.
Possible poem there.
We cross the bridge
where below the old beaver lurks.
A can of Coors
rests on a rail.
I see a homeless man
carrying a bag of cans and bottles
across the street.
I call out to him about the can.
He says, thank you
and crosses the street.
No poem there.
But possible greeting card.
Geese honk overhead.
Freight trains lurch and decouple.
Elmer and I keep moving.
We hit the bark chip path,
lit up by lampposts,
and pass the
split oak
and fallen cedar.
Down the path
I see a homeless man
meander.
He stops and
scratches out something
in the bark chips
with his right foot.
He’s designing something.
He’s not scraping
dog shit of his shoes.
Art is happening!
Maybe a haiku!
I’ve got to see what he’s creating!
The man turns right
and disappears across a bridge.
Elmer and I move forward.
I stop and behold the artist’s design:
It’s giant penis with testicles.
It’s ejaculating!
Definitely got a poem here.
Smooth Extrication
Movement outside my front window.
I move to investigate.
A gnarled and bearded
homeless man,
sorts through
my neighbor’s garbage can
with a homemade
claw of a tool.
This? Maybe.
No.
Not this.
This.
The claw extricates a garment.
The extrication is silky smooth.
A gray WSU hoodie.
He inspects it.
He folds it neatly, tight.
He sets it on his wagon.
My neighbor must have thought
the hoodie too dirty and threadbare to donate.
It makes me wonder what I’ve thrown away
that still had purpose.
The claw extricates another garment.
Even smoother this time.
A gray WSU sweatshirt.
He inspects it.
He folds it neatly, tight.
He sets it atop the hoodie.
He makes me think of my
dead Uncle Dale.
A clothes horse
who hung up his
t-shirts on hangers
and arranged them by color.
Someone, somewhere
along the way
taught this man
how to fold clothes
like this.
His form didn’t develop
on its own.
He’s been doing
it his whole life
and he’s now in his
40s or 50s.
