the woman in my dream is naked she seems to be
some sort of wood nymph no longer young but radiant
as trees in the sun she sits on the ground
and a green plant grows out of her spine its leaves
are like huge hands arching over her shoulders
blessing the crown of her head this is

the very plant by the left side of the door
of the townhouse Dan and I just bought
of which the young Bosnian former owner's father
Mohammed said: "one leaf dies three more grow!"

he showed us the grapevine he had planted
the persimmon the yellow rose

the middle aged wood nymph in my dream has no patience
for my lamentations about lost houses and lovely valley views she says:

consider the roses when Leah showed Dan
how to prune them she cut just above
each nascent bloom

you have been cut back the better to flower
here in the garden of Mohammed

once this was somebody’s
grandparents’ farm sweet
as Rebecca of Sunnybrook
do you remember? how she skipped
among meadows with wildflowers
‘til she was thrown
like a sheep
to the ground
shorn of her corn her hay

but she’s still here that girl
you’ll see her playing in the fountains
near Rotten Robbie’s Gasoline
or herding her geese by the Chinese
All-You-Can-Eat Buffet
while cars zoom past on 680
in sight of the mountain

you’d think she’d be dead by now
after all the concrete that’s been poured
but that girl is
wild as Rima
talks to the willows to the birches
laughs aloud at the ducks
who have commandeered
the community
swimming pool

and you
old ecstatic
of trees
have you forgotten
green mansions that slip
of a girl who first lit
the green fire?

talk to her
your wild friend from beyond
civilization
give her a seat
in the camphor tree
by your study

for she can give tongue
to the reveries of trees
and what
that mountain
commands

our stories are sailing away
in an upside-down boat
while we sleep we are not anymore
the ones

who live in a house on a ridge
make love under redwood beams
are visited by owls
in the night

nor are we the ones
who came to this pier
the farthest point west
long ago

there are boys
skateboarding off
the pier there are fishermen throwing
their lines

into the dark where have they gone
the hands the hips the lips of the ones
we used to be at the Old Molina
at Whale Watch at Agate Cove?

we climb the stairs
of the lighthouse footsteps
behind us look out at the rocks where so many
ships have foundered their well-crafted hulls

their masts their captains’
sleeping quarters drift down
as lost as the ones
we once were

we look for ourselves
in the fire will the burning wood remember
which woods we’ve hiked which birds have called
interrupting what reveries? how many grandfather

redwood trees have shadowed
our paths so a ray
of dusty light could touch
the crown of our heads?

where are they now in what deep
where i fish with what line
this is a poem i have written
how many times before?

is there a counting angel who tallies it up
walks taken beds slept in love made
and also the fights bad blood words burnt
in the mouth as gift as sacrifice is there an angel

who collects every broken shard
every puzzle piece
who will write it all down
in the book of our lives:

Dan and Naomi were here?