Straightening the Trees

We are straightening the trees
in a snowed-in wood.
It isn't hard to free
the burdened branches bowed:
A single touch will do
to let the needles leap.
But do they whisper thank you as they rise,
or would they sooner sleep?

January 29 2010

Summer Canned

Summer canned is winter, never doubt:
ardor must be eaten when it's picked;
abandon never lived inside a jar.

January 24 2010

Anniversary

We have made our home by a shifting shore
where tides and moons and seasons all revisit,
fractal nested, one inside another,
but every wave that washes leaves an altered strand
and every storm is different from the ones before.
Change in constancy, constancy in change:
Our lives turn on a spiral, not a ring,
and hard as it may be to see the difference,
every round we've made has found us farther up the spring.
You and I could walk this sand forever, 
always finding something new--and should;
which seems in some way fastened to the fact
that though we've walked so far, so long,
we still can somehow always see
where we began, and know that it is good.

January 21 2010

Your Four Old Limbs

In the complication of your four old limbs
you find sufficient challenge for an average day.
The simple art of rising's almost lost to you,
and stairs are flat impossible without my aid.
When we walk, I listen to your hesitance,
and we turn around, no matter where,
when you want home. This works for me:

Age is no detractor from a friendship;
friendship values friendship, not mobility.
Years add only comfort to your company;
I ask nothing of you but to be.

And I will take your snoring presence on the floor
as long as you can stay.

January 18 2011

Against

The snowstorm left
one side of that tree painted
white
against its black
against the darkened
rose
of the nighttime clouds pushing
close
against the houses
as I let the dog in 
black
against the white
and lock the door
warm
against the night.

January 14 2011

Solo Crow

Solo 
crow so low
lights on the seawall
dances down to the sand.
His black makes him a harbinger
but he is surely caught up in this cold
with all of us. At least his black is definite
against all this weathered ambiguity,
but when the white strikes out the world tonight,
guaranteed, he'll be gone 
like all the rest.

January 14 2011

How Could I Possibly Not Take Your Hand

How could I possibly not take your hand
when you placed it in mine at supper?
You should have been eating but
your small still-perfect fingers were
so cool in mine
a casual gift from thoughtless youth;
you must have wondered 
at my ancient wonder because
you could not see the place your fingers touched
inside me.

January 6 2011