Nightstand (painting)

I found a pretty good paint program that somewhat emulates the look and feel of oil paint.

The Cataract

So I will steal this little time reflective,
mindful of the good and of the hurts
that I have had or have inflicted,
and by their light inspect the occult kernel of my life.
These rests are never long enough;
the gripping strain will come again to catch me
up in heaven's cataract
down which we boaters course;
but to that roaring water let me take,
so close to broken but not yet,
at least one realization,
how much this grinding strength is true
measure of the worth of what we're given,
and remember that, if just in part,
the coldness and the kindness of the world
are in, not it, but me.

November 24 2010

Daylight Saving

This time, it isn't coming back.
We had our second chance and now
we'll dress ourselves in darkness till the Spring.
At least we got to practice those old skills;
we know how to find a teeshirt's collar
and make it tell its front and back
through touch alone, and as for jeans, they're easy.
Much more difficult is separating sleep and waking:
so close, like eyes being shut or open in the dark;
it would be so simple
to put the wrong one on and go
out.

November 16 2010

There Comes a Point When You Must Take Out

There comes a point when you must take out
everything in your wallet. Cleaning out
the old receipts, the dirty bills,
the cash machine's reports of drain
makes something almost new again
of the emptied space in which is left
only what you want and must keep most
close to you. Your cards, your scraps,
your pieces of identity and all that's dear
are free to sleep,
protected by these walls,
unhectored by the gibber
of all the petty history that you were forced to gather.
Here, for one brief afternoon
or morning or a night, they and you may breathe
quietly, 
in this atmosphere of light
that has nothing in it to endow
but, for you and they, the simple blessing of the now. 

November 13 2010

As To a Church I Come

As to a church I come to this door;
left behind my dear young family,
their treasured secular strife a momentary murmur,
no interruption to my prayer in an upward gaze
to a silent night in which a single star
regards me as quietly as the voice
that I imagine I would hear
if ever I heard His.

November 6 2010

The Late Young Dandelions

She thwarted the late young dandelions
by picking and placing their heads
yellow in a row
in the space between two planks
of the deck step.
Their purple bulbous cousins,
would-be natives of the next projected spring,
she elevated one above;
but in the morning,
after last night's first hard frost especially,
they all were withered
soon to disappear--if lucky, to be re-picked by a wind
and placed
where rot can do the most good. 
This is only what we should expect
and hope for, that there will always be
such flowers to be sacrificed
to a childish sense of ornament and order
wherever we may live.
 
November 1 2010