Crow flies

straight across the powdered sky.

There’s birdsong;

it’s an early spring day in fall.

The season’s at a loss:

I should be sleeping, not waking;

the summer did its work,

and now it’s my task to cease.

It isn’t for me to worry about

the ferment and the chaos of next year.

November 21 2021

The sidewalk runs out here.

I’ll face the traffic down the long slope of road

to the neighborhood I used to see

every sunrise morning, and the ocean,

which has never drawn one fear from me

on the flat pull of receding water.

The beach is just an end point for my walk,

but irony is lively in the salty breeze

when I find that I can’t reach the sand

because the seawall stairwell’s full of slopping tide,

scrubbing steps and stones as clean as air.

September 20 2021

After work, go outside.

Drop the hose end into your watering can

and watch the water rise.

Turn the water off and let the hose

drip onto the ground.

Be fair:

All your plants are thirsty.

June 18 2021

Creating art is a drug like any other; the only interesting thing is that it leaves your hallucinations behind.

May 17 2021

the crabapple tree is like

hey lawnmower guy

sorry I smacked your face but

you won’t find blossoms like these

just anywhere

May 17 2020

IOU

I owe you tulips for the yard,

beneath the arbor vitae.

By the time your birthday arrived

they were gone from the garden centers,

and the women told me I should come back in the fall,

when bulbs will be there ready

to be planted for the spring.

It's a long time to wait, but I will buy them.

Please keep this so you’ll remember to remind me.

May 9 2021

As yet light rain.

Two turkeys on a neighbor’s lawn

go unregarded.

He is

(buoyant rapturous eager riotous frantic)

loud,

alarm bell for the neighborhood,

howling other dogs awake

and announcing, like it or not,

that day is here.

No single word describes a morning hound.

May 1 2021

In spring, dogs walk over dead leaves

just as in fall,

but it’s all leftovers:

the yellow grass,

the threat of last-gasp snow,

the clouds both ominous and featureless.

It's a used up world,

with only flowers to prove me wrong so far,

and we really need the sun

to make us shine.

April 8 2021

Like knowing how to put on a shoe really well:

These things take time,

and you can be well into adulthood before you catch on.

Amazing how long you can live without learning,

especially given the relief of finally understanding

how to do it right.

March 9 2021

I Won't Call the Ocean (Version 1)

I won’t call the ocean

at the end of the street a wall,

fool my eye how it wants to.

I can’t live with that kind of limit;

I need to see the slate as never ending,

and on it written the lyrics

to the song of the circling world.

April 4 2021

I Won't Call the Ocean (Version 2)

I won’t call the ocean

at the far end of the street a roof,

fool my eye however much it wants to.

I can’t live with that kind of limit;

I need to see the slate as never ending,

and on it written the words

to a song that encircles the world.

April 6 2021

On a chilly winter day in spring,

I walked my dog, as is my wont.

Stoic daffodils wore masks

of beautiful endurance,

and reborn birds sang patience

to tell me I could do this.

Summer’s just a little further on,

and you’re armored now

against the dying wind.

April 17 2021

Watch the rock and moss continue,

one to weather,

one to grow.

So still.

April 26 2021

There’s a damp feeling of cellar to the spring.

Always a dark sky to be felt in the offing

with silent memories of thunder,

and mud abounds.

It’s the sort of thing you take, though,

when your back has had it with cracking

from the weight of the snow you lift or blow.

The pagan dread I feel some days

at the feel of life reviving

gives heft to the eagerness of sorting seeds

and planning forest walks with boots on

and rising hope for our companion.

February 24 2021

Men my age walk dogs along the river here.

We know the distance and the difference

between now and when we started.

We’ve lost more than a step or two along the paths,

and we’ve taken with us more than one friend,

but the men we someday will become—

who in their houses or linoleum rooms

read, or watch, or flirt with nurses,

and wait to take what comes—

they still call us youth.

February 22 20201

Democracy cradles dissent,

lifts argument to its ear,

and pronounces the prevailing will to be law.

It has no truck with violence,

holds hatred’s lies to be self-evident,

and, above all, keeps its founding wish alive,

that the soul of its people will not simply live,

but thrive.

February 14 2021

She told me all about her plans for social justice

last night before I read to her.

She's ambitious, One Percent;

be wary with your wealth: She'll gladly cap it.

I had to let her talk herself out before we could get to Harry,

and then finally she fell asleep.

Tomorrow, the world.

February 3 2021

The wind is cold off the ocean.

Now they're saying four to eight where we live.

I can still see features in the cloud, so not yet.

Flags of all causes snap to together.

He doesn't know and wouldn't care;

to him, it's all about the odors,

and all cats are grey in the snow

if they're fool enough to be out.

February 1 2021

Reassurance

 

The single space

to which you have a positive right

is this: 

in darkness, a candle flame.

January 27 2021

Answer

It is a questioning gaze

through many-fingered trees, across the marsh

to where the line dividing waits

for stars or cloud

or whatever will arrive,

and the sight of departing birds,

and the cold that bites your fingers through the gloves,

and the prospect of returning

through rapidly dropping dark,

to where your car is freezing

and your dog jumps quickly in

so you can drive him carefully home

to a well-earned supper,

and the memory before sleep

of a calm, dispassionate place.

 

January 7 2021