Cleansing

I scrub my parents’ pool,
my stainless steel brush attachment
like a staff. Reflecting
in the water are our evergreens, the ash,
and the newly planted, dying maple.
These are the last standing trees
of Walnut Creek. I come here when I need to think,
walking circles around the pool,
the cartoon cliché of pacing’s furrows recalling

Japanese Zen gardens. Trendy businessmen
rake their mini-garden
back… forth…
with an index finger. I feared
the summer’s tornadoes, God’s finger
raking its contemplative path
through civilized landscape,
fields, hills, buildings,
and the creek behind my house.
I fantasized that jungle airborne,
the twister gorging on greens and meats alike,
animals and sky both screaming.

Businessmen brought bulldozers
and cemented the creek. Erosion has stopped.
The drainage ditch burbles when it rains, and,
with more sky than ever reflected on the poolwater,
it is easier to spot scum, to take a brush,
and scrub: Up… down…

2002-3