Assistance

Old man;
old dog;
old truck.
He lifts him in.

December 29 2013

A Principle of Dreams

One clear principle of dreams
is that one thing leads to another.
Therefore, do not dream of cats,
to prevent the appearance of tigers.
Cellars are much larger and darker than they first appear
when you venture down the stairs.
Likewise, if you visit your old college campus
you will find that it stretches further
with more unfamiliar buildings
the farther you go to find the classes
for which you have no schedule.
Rather, dream of apricots,
which may lead to thoughts of fruit in general
and proceed to tangerines;
or of baskets, which tend to hold good bread;
or lightning, which can stimulate
thoughts of safety and of home,
where an absent friend is waiting
to hear you tell your dream.

December 18 2013

Stained Concrete 2 (Manna Rising)

Stained Concrete

Love Needs

Love needs 
to see love
in eyes it loves 
to be love,
or it is just 
the feel of
love, but never
real love.

December 3 2013

Fox and Hound

That fox was a while ago,
but still it lingers here,
amid all the wrack, the scent of a wreck
that only his nose can see.
Too faint, thank God, for rolling in,
but still the remembered mystery:
what it was, 
where it is,
and why he may not follow.

November 21 2013

The Heartened Shell

As when the fever breaks
and you are tired, clean, and empty;
you walk out from your house into a field
and the wind upholds you.
You recognize the sun from long ago
and the water from the grasses bathes your feet.
All these gentle affirmations grace
the fragile part that hopes to strengthen,
and you bring the heartened shell of you
back home, and throw the windows open.

November 18 2013

Programmer's Affirmation

Do not generalize
from local failure
to global incompetence.
Your errors are no longer in scope
when the current function returns.
Trust in a catch for every try,
that your validation is robust,
and that if nothing else you have planned
for graceful degradation.

November 12 2013

That She Was Never Far Away

That she was never far away, oh
that she looked over my shoulder
to edit me, and with what greatest grace
and kindness she encouraged me,
my silent watcher sitting perhaps now even at his hand
or feet, healed, rested,
and wiser; 
now indeed she lives, now indeed,
and it is exactly she to whom my tears return
and always will except that now I have been given the sight
of where she is happy
and ever will be,
in hope,
in hope, oh,
near.

November 7 2013

Skitter

It skitters, one leaf

up the street on paper claws.

Snow stalks close behind.

November 2 2013

Parking Lot Entrance (Road Number 4)

Around Here

Around here, people stand by their cars
at the other end of parking lots
and merge with the general grey.
We judge the value of a man 
by the color of his silence
and women govern competently in SUVs.
We know that winter follows fall,
that spring is late and grudging,
and that summer ends;
but work is always there to save us.
We would all be driftwood, if there were enough,
things of wood and wire that have endured the sea,
but much of what we have is pebble,
which is also washed and serviceable,
so most of us make do
with stone.

October 22 2013

Road Number 3

Bells

It isn't the time the bell is calling
but Mass. From where we walk
each peal of each 
sounds much the same,
though where Mass's rings 
sing close upon each other,
time's more measured, more methodic.
But bells are bells, only different in intent.
Time's chimes can be counted;
each hearing walker must decide
if both bells can be counted on.

October 15 2013

I Couldn't Quite Hear the Question It Was Asking Me

Peggotty Beach Walk

He is plunging along like a tug in high seas
at the end of a snapping line
while the garnet breakers toss treasure on the shore.
The wind is beating the season back toward winter
when the beach will be ours once more.

October 12 2013

Life Cycle of a Band

The band breaks in
the band breaks through
the band breaks out.
The band plays around
the band breaks down
the band goes under
the band breaks up.
The band is over.

October 12 2013

They Gave Me a Horse, and a One Hour Head Start

Road Number 2

Rhyme with God

God is in the wind, is in the dell.
God is in the winding of a shell.
Speaking in the silence,
sounding in a bell;
God's in every place that I can tell.

October 8 2013

Boardwalk, Egypt Beach

Road Number 1

His Scenting

His scenting correlates with wind
in which the ghosts of fox and cat
come visiting,
down the sidewalk he
is vacuuming.
There's no arguing with a nose;
all you get
is sweat.

September 1 2013

Baseball Memory

Wakefield in the zone
turns and catches Varitek's
throw behind his back.

August 30 2013

So Let the Little Light

So let the little light go out;
we are not afraid.
Bring darkness to the sills of belovéd eyes;
we will still be glad.
Ending is no curb to joy
when in us she is free,
a harbored spirit safe and glowing,
casting exuberant beams upon the walls
of our poor souls to show
the vanity of sadness.

July 29 2013

So Often When We Leave

So often when we leave we are no longer ourselves
and the people who remember us cannot.
All the things that ravage, overlay
and we become a gray
a dwindled voice
uncertain legs
a medication.

There's no fairness to the fact
that when we lose,
the lively face
the laugh
the springing gaiety
are bled away.
Photographs are paltry proxies for all that.

This is when I turn to dreams;
it is there I know
that as I try to understand
how I will return from Denmark
with all the extra bottles,
at any moment you may visit me
smiling,
and clearly I will see your face
and hear again your voice.

July 26 2013

ghost

A Hill at Night

Everyone sits alone on a hill at night
at least one time.
People come to different realizations
but the fractured ways 
lead all of us without exception to 
a separate place, the same for each,
and in it we're bereft of grace,
powerless on a midnight slope
to do otherwise than stay,
unable to climb or to descend,
brooding above a well-lit house 
where lately we were home.

July 20 2013

Mowing

So odd to be always
living in their past,
knowing as I mow
that if a memory persists
of this, it will be
nothing I expect
or can bestow.

July 16 2013

"we were not told how many of you to expect"

Walk on a Snowy Day

By my older daughter.

Trees are all about me,
their sharp needles covered with snow.
Little white flakes come down
and collide with my tongue.
The frost nips at my pink nose and cheeks
as the icy wind blows across me.
My black jacket now sprinkled with white
reminds me of my delight,
of my wonderful walk in the woods.

Toss Two Gulls

I saw the sky toss two gulls
over my head before the dog came loping in.
Then there was a pause
long enough to do the dishes and the ironing
but the TV had to go off
and the AC just in case
when they started tearing the cover off the sky.

She cried, something that startled me,
and you cradled her,
and even the older one read wide-eyed
while I smiled and retold the story
about a noisy coffee grinder and an infant
hiding her head between my feet. 

I think it was the ripping sound that scared us most; 
the thought that lightning that loud might rend us, 
might tear our home asunder. 
When the storm had walked slowly, muttering, out to sea
we went upstairs, complaining about the heat
and listening to the rain, to watch some more TV together.
And the dog lay on his bed, wondering
and forgetting.

June 27 2013

Missing Bella

Nothing emptier
than a lawn without the dog
that used to lie there.

June 11 2013

Hurricane Season

The trees were trying to run away.
Above the neighbor's rooftop they bent
but couldn't flee. They were workmanlike,
bent on leafing, not expecting this early onslaught,
and the way they washed the evening
with their rushing protest proved it.
From where I sat on the cooling deck
it seemed that hurricane season was obsessively literal
and though the wind brought blessed change,
I wondered with a wary eye whether hurrying branches
might break away and cut my season short;
no need for that new propane now
or to worry about wasps starting troublesome homes
in the grill, or the worn umbrella.

June 3 2013

That Red

That red can't be a rose;
not yet. I know
pretender rhododendrons
are just spring
practicing for summer.

May 28 2013

Leash handling

Dog, the rangy creature,
pulls hard,
heedless of my hold upon the leash.
A good owner would never permit such liberties with the lead,
but that's what you get with a hound: a driven thing.
Is there a lesson here,
or is it just an id
imperfectly tethered to a fretful conscience?
Drop it for today; let him scent.
Be on your way to coffee.

May 17 2013

Backyard Catch

It is a thing among things
to be able to play
in the backyard catch
with my children.

May 11 2013

I Have Been To the Falling

I have been to the falling asleep
when it was truly like a falling
and I have received it much more rarely
like a blessing.
I have been to the waking up
when it was like dragging a chain from the ocean floor
and I have felt it much less often
spring from me like a singing bird.
You never know what you'll find behind those doors
tigers, princesses, or the old routine.
I never dream about coffee
and never when awake have I scratched behind the ears
of a large black bear
but in some respects the two states are the same.
I dream about and ride in elevators
and make phone calls
with uncooperative buttons that signal to me
a certain helplessness;
sometimes hitting fast forward
seems like a good way to go.
But the seed pearl is there
caught between the curb and the tired slush
if you look down at just the right instant
and I seem to remember
or was it a dream
last night waking
to the sound of rain.

May 9 2013

Equinoctial

This is when the clouds get interesting.
Here at the first right angle of the year
when the trend is up
and the trees are talking seriously up there 
about something you can't quite understand,
revisitation is among us:
strange shapes are worked upon the sky
and we anticipate leaves.
Bright aliens in the sunny spots
act natural
but we are wise to them and their kerfuffle:
the world is shouting, wake!
the sun is risen.

April 10 2013

Falling Objects

We were all a little nervous 
about objects falling from the sky.
Was that the way apocalypse
would finally visit us?
It wasn't a matter of if anymore
but when. Any bright light might
be the one.
We knew the limits of science
and defensive weaponry.
We did not trust
the grim determination of movies
to carry the day.
A warmer earth; obesity; and guns:
These were the portents,
not a comet with its tail on fire.
This time Kahoutek would pan out.
Halley would return too soon
and vengeful.
We were guided by life to seek more of it,
continuation our duty and our joy.
But there was also fatigue, 
and who wants to bequeath
burdens to the future?
Oh, it was a shameful speculation
and we knew what happens when you wish.
But one dark wonder kept inside
the secret watchpocket of our daily clothing
ticked:
Better quick the end than slow?
In the unsought conviction of disaster
we weighed alternatives and knew
the downside of a heavenly finale was largely
to be left alive.

April 5 2013

Dogwalk

Watch the treetops to understand
what you should wear on your dogwalk.
North wind, south wind, east wind, west;
coffee is what
I love the best.

April 5 2013

Non-Rhyming Poem

This poem is by my younger daughter, written when she was probably just about 9.

The wings of birds,
like leaves on trees,
falling down onto rivers of life,
like snow on a winter day.
Gently, almost like flowing,
like a river,
like a lily pad gently on flowing water.
Like animals playing roughly together,
tugging on a branch, happily, running.
Like floating,
like laughing kids on a summer day.

Eat the Summer

I will eat the summer
like a peach
and keep the stone
when I am done
within my reach
and as autumn pilfers
light from day
that seed alone
all else undone
I'll hide away
so when winter renders
orchards bare
as twisted bone
and kills the sun
and fills the air
I can throw the stone back
toward the spring
and when it's grown
birds one by one
will start to sing.

March 19 2013

Winter 2013

My god the road is made of iron
all give of summer gone
beneath the weight of ice
fanatic snowflakes fall to add to
along the potholed way.
They'll never fix it now till Spring
brings this darkened hemisphere
a little nearer to the sun,
but that is miles away,
in another town than Winter,
and much too far to walk.

March 9 2013

Sleeping Dog Lies

The involvement of ear
with tail with nose
with eye with muzzle
with knee; he makes
his circle here so perfectly
upon the bed where he well knows
he is not supposed to be.

February 17 2012

It Fell

It fell all day.
I was reminded of those portions of the world
where the air may be at any time inhabited
where distance is always layered into fainter
and fainter gray. 
It brought the counsel of the coyote much closer;
I felt the animal's defensive gaze upon me 
as it turned to disappear,
and I was minded to build a fire even in my living room.
God of the suburban South, help me close the eyes of my imagination on
those barren plains and the silent ancestor mountains beyond.
God of the North, protect my family and me till Spring.

February 17 2013

Bespectacled Man

When I find I have become the bespectacled man,
it is, because it is fitting,
without any sense of regret.
As I wait among the dancers at the studio for my own,
in the calm eye of their ceaseless storm of sparrowbanter,
it is pleasant to feel apart,
a part of the unconsidered furniture of their day,
playing an outmoded game on an outmoded telephone. 
No one, they say,
if they say it at all, no one, and it is true.
How peaceful to be so undisturbed until she comes out,
tired, whom I may ferry
tiredly, happily home.

February 1 2013

Dog's Life

He seems to be
exactly
the shape of life;
a trotting demonstration.
We should have named him
QED.
His lines are drawn by
necessity
for anyone who looks to see
how beauty
is that which tends to life
and therefore good
and has to be.

January 15 2013