Feather

I'm holding a hawk feather as we walk,
and it's a lively thing,
kiting upward each time I swing my hand,
and becoming a divining rod with every breeze,
twisting and pulled to the upper air.
The dog doesn't care,
but clearly flight is in my grasp.

August 10 2017

Brokedown Palace

It isn't that the thunder lets her in,
but while I'm puttering inside,
waiting till the storm decides
to mutter off to sea,
I find a farewell song she loved
and don't press next. I let it play,
so that as I put the plates away
I can remember.

August 10 2017

Intent

Low tide makes it
a long walk to water,
and the bottom's unfamiliar,
so it's easy for him to wade
a little deeper than he meant--
though that's a funny question,
a dog's intent. Some can scheme, I hear,
but he is usually content
to take each step as plan enough,
and if he finds that he can swim,
well, that's a bonus.

July 18 2017

Never Mind

I don't think poems
should start with "I".

Damn.

Sufficient

He shows me black pads as we leave the marsh.
I hope he'll walk the mud off.
The weather's gray. Colors are careful,
sticking strictly to their surfaces:
leaves, trail, and boulder--
except one extravagant patch of green
algae on the slumping shoulder of the river bank.
This is how it goes:
We walk far enough.
We return soon enough.
We eat enough lunch at home,
and if the sun comes, it will,
because it has to,
be enough.

May 31 2017

Walker

Yoga pants, yoga pants, yoga pants, yoga pants.
Yoga pants, yoga pants, yoga pants, baseball cap.
Yoga pants, yoga pants, baseball cap, cell phone.
Yoga pants, baseball cap, cell phone, water bottle.
Yoga pants.

May 27 2017

Evening News

The river has frozen,
the wolves have crossed over,
and they're loose in the fold and the vine.
Master and mistress are both laid low,
and there's none but the children
to guard all the kine.

March 24 2017

Two Fake Quotes

"Darker sky, brighter stars." -- Calech proverb

"Ask yourself: Is the elevator falling, or have you learned to fly?"
-- de Reis Paul, 'Observations on the Apocalypse'

February 20 2017

Snow Day

The trees are humming,
a giant hive of winter bees.
But there isn't any snow.
Not yet.

February 9 2017

The Fault of Memory

Having to kind of carefully construct the day;
old age is on its way.
Make certain of the order of things:
when kiss; when take out the milk.
So much hangs on habit.
Strike a surprise,
jump the track;
you'll flounder in the snow,
a whiteout that could lose you,
so turn, regain the rails,
and follow them back home.

February 9 2017

Approaching

Several blocks away, the ocean speaks.
Do you remember me?
Are you ready to hear me again?
The wind agrees.
For too long you have listened to a man
and asked familiar faces to comfort you with truth.
Says the darkness,
clearly you are blinded by your windows
and have let their light consume you.
Make yourself our mirror now,
to reclaim your native chaos
and work transfiguration on the dormant land,
for we are the one true storm.

January 23 2017

Bells

I heard the bells play Gloria
this morning as we walked our usual road.
Yesterday my daughter was suddenly unsure
whether bells could run out of rings. We laughed,
but I know what it is to lose your certainty,
as if home isn't where you thought it was.
Now the year is running down to darkness,
and the promise of renewal is for a distant time.
I should remember to tell her that the tower says
bells don't run out of chime.

December 6 2016

Purple Cars

Purple cars
are so painfully like grape candy
that my mouth feels the shape
and tastes the sudden memory
of childhood.

December 2 2016

Fortune Cookie

"Before you answer a question, question the question."
-- The Collected Fortune Cookie Sayings of Michael Kei Stewart

November 20 2016

The Significance of Leaves

Never before have the leaves
been so significant.
You could stand
in the middle of 5th Avenue
and shoot somebody
and the leaves would still
be there.

November 15 2016

Kate's Trousers

Katherine Hepburn's trousers:
just one of the billion things
in the process of being forgotten.
So important then,
but almost unconsidered now,
yet still the memory's infused,
like water in the ground from which
our sapling wisdom springs.

October 20 2016

A Winter

The snow slipped in so silently
no brother wind
it was only the alarm that told us.
Five more minutes.
The dog was daunted by the depth:
no place to pee.
On we slogged
and somewhere sleep sloughed off me
leaving us alone
in the woken winter.

September 9 2016

@Goethe @Longfellow

Well,
but can't you be instead
the sword that is forged,
or the plowshare beaten from it?

September 10 2016

Breakfast

The weight of a dog's warm behind
on your left foot as you eat your cereal
is certainly no bad thing.

August 25 2016

Gypsy Moths

We walked through a hallway of gypsy moths
by the river which was then at high tide.
The boaters' happiness reached us easily
but not the words they said.
It was hot. He waded,
chest deep and grinning
where the anglers might reasonably object,
but a dog in clear water is an absolute good
and fish should swim hookless anyhow
on such a day.

August 10 2016

Trouble at the Plate

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it (see how).

Dorothy Amelia Palmer (June 1, 1873 – November 11, 1932) was the first female Major League Baseball (MLB) outfielder. Nicknamed "Trouble", Palmer played for the Maryland Cavaliers (1899–1902), the Illinois Gents (1903–1909), and the Ohio Highpockets (1909). Palmer recorded a .315 career batting average, and in 1904 she hit a home run in each of 3 consecutive games, an outstanding achievement in the dead ball era.

Palmer earned her nickname when the manager of an opposing team, variously identified as Bob Shotuck of the Nebraska Hornpipes and Ned Festin of the Idaho Ranchers, complained that Palmer was "nothing but trouble at the plate." The phrase caught on quickly among fans, who took to chanting, "Here comes trouble at the plate" or simply, "Here comes trouble" when Palmer came up to bat.

Although Palmer's statistics rivaled those of many Hall of Famers, she was never inducted. Whether--as seems likely--this is attributable to gender bias, or is simply a matter of bad luck, it is probably one reason that Palmer's name is unfamiliar to fans and players today. The later rise to fame of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League during World War II no doubt further eclipsed her fame.

Early Life

Dorothy Palmer was the only child of Frederick and Bonnie Palmer, beet farmers in Gostock, West Virginia... (read more)

Steinbeck--and Howe

The Rose of Sharon blooms
and summer's wrath is trampling on the vines.
Vintage trucks are migrant in the glory
of dust they kick up swiftly
as lightning by the sward.

August 4 2016

HaiQR

Dog Lines 4

Excepting This Alone