Turtle-Whisperfor Peter Street

by Laura Kaminski

Small, soft-shelled thing
still encased in a pale
leather orb -- the moon

looks just like you do,
mostly round.
The dunes are filled

with hungry monsters
gathered in anticipation
of your hatching.

Listen.
When you come out onto
the sand, don't dawdle.

Turn immediately
to find the greater egg
of safety, make

a straight-line furrow
toward the moon's
reflection in the sea.

Don't waste time on
fearful dodging of their
vicious claws -- just

scramble, stretch each
flipper to put the beach
behind you,

fix your gaze on that
bright glow
beyond the froth.

When you emerge, you'll
have no time to be
careful.

Some stories will
be lost
before the sunrise.

Uncertainty after Werner Herzog’s documentary film Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Creative Differences Productions, 2010

by Laura Kaminski

It’s part of what it means
to be human, why we find
inks, immerse our hands
and brushes, seek
a receptive surface.

Chauvet caves in southern
France, when every other
thing that came before
the fire had fangs, they
painted, layer on layer

herds of running, plunging
screaming, dancing horses.
They painted every time
the snows came. Each
empty surface begs for ink.

Native tribes sketched
horses on their symbols,
on the talking stick and pipe,
then dipped their hands
in dye and painted

symbols on their horses.
Faced with uncertain
certainties, rivers that can’t
reliably be stepped in
twice, we turn to ink.

We love the moon
for being out of reach,
taller than our ladders,
a page we haven’t found
a way to fill, still empty.

We love the moon
for being lonely,
for not being a river,
love that it keeps
coming back around.

Tempest

by Laura Kaminski

I go out while all’s still
dark, reach for the bottom
of the towering pile of
clouds, tug it toward me, fold
and knead, quarter turn,
repeat, then set them back
into the sky for second
rising, preheat morning.

By eleven they’ll be
baking, separating into flaky
cirrus layers ready to melt
on the breeze-tongue
of noon. Done with early
pastries, I brush hands
against my apron,
scatter raindrops.

Time to take down the
Bugatti blender (seriously)
and the KitchenAid
girl-tractor, I want
this kitchen redolent
with ionic ginger, dark
substantial offering
for later.

Bring your own
cup and whatever’s left
in that tin of Imperial
Gunpowder. Step out
at four o’clock precisely.
Serve your
self.

Elusive Alchemist

by Laura Kaminski

I bought a guide to local
birds, thought I might learn
to recognize a feathered
phrase or two. It is
a rainbow codex, organized
by plumage, begins with
redwing blackbird’s flashy
epaulets, woodpeckers’ helmets,
then proceeds with cardinal-
and robin-red, works through
to shades of jays and bunting-
indigo.

But it cannot guide me
now, three hours after
midnight, searching in
the darkness for a fiddler
and his echo. I am far
beyond the limits
of the rainbow. I am out
without a flashlight
and the moonlight keeps
its secrets, it won’t reveal
sources, and I cannot see
the whippoorwill.

Three Pigs and Wolf

by Laura Kaminski

Dreadlocks: Three young javalina, trotting line behind sow-mother, up the embankment, across the road, fast-moving. Born with all their hair full-length, short little hoofed haunches not yet grown into their hides. Strands hang down into the dust, rusty gray-brown and wiry black rodent dreadlocks, a row of escaping Rastafarian wigs.

Too North: Strange to see them this far north in land that has grown cherries and seen snow. Drive up slow and stop the Jeep, get out and stand exactly where they crossed, look down the crease they’ve left in the middle of the field, flat trail to match one worn by the Mexican wolf in the Phoenix Zoo.

First Wolf: He is a river of instinct carving a path to a soap-bubble sea held delicately in his mind. Perpetual walkabout, his trail a curving figure-eight, he never pauses or hesitates, never looks around or up or out. Wonder if he is pounding down the path to ease the way for the rest of the pack. He faces forward, never sees the ones behind him who follow single-file, each paw-pad placed exactly in the foot-falls of First Wolf.

Mobius: Perhaps, instead, he’s hay-wired late, wakes each evening, begins running, perpetually tries to catch up with his pack. He cannot see them. They move impossibly ahead each afternoon while he is sleeping.

Darwin: Contemplate the javalina strait, straight parting of the mountain grasses, half a mile. Fast, they’ve vanished into a scattering of rocks and juniper, fast. Fast like the wolf, and faster. Have a caricature vision, bearded Darwin, fraying track-suit, watching from the hill. He has a stop-watch timing laps, advises them to step it up, reminds they must clock it faster than a wolf-trot or their furry little bacon will not make the team.

Source: Gaze south, pick up the sweet dusty scent of pollen, follow it backward, trace the migratory river to its source. Wonder how many generations they have been running, these piglets, since they began south of the border, set off at the pop of a gun from some sun-drenched village. Mark mileage generations in the changing shades of green. Agave lime tequila grasshopper. Taste for salt.