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.