Abundance of Caution

I remember wearing gloves.
The hoarders had their day.
A man at the White House said it was all okay,
and don't forget to vote.
We won't, we promised each other, from a social distance.
The dogs had no idea what was going on,
nor Venus, nor poor dim Betelgeuse;
local thunder stole his show.
On a cold morning when life was springing,
I wondered if I would someday write this down.
Better, I thought, perhaps, to do it now,
but think of it, someone mentioned just then in a meeting
that cherry blossoms still were scheduled to bloom.

March 16 2020

Delay

Insane snowdrops taunted dying winter,
invading even the shadow ground behind the house,
and green blades slashed the weakened mulch by the neighbor’s hedge.
On the way home I was avid for news from the frogs,

but then I thought no
wait
don’t be greedy
soon here, soon gone

not yet

Sandwich Love

by Leonie Tesman

It's a peanut butter romance
but the bread is good
and the jelly makes it sweet.
Darling, give me milk.
You're stuck to the roof of my heart.

January 2 2020

Continual

The new year drags them forward:
ills, unfinished chores,
the worry and the doubt.
There is no starting over; it's about
the debts that last year left us;
that is what we shoulder
as we take a breath,
a step,
and then another. January watches
as we turn from celebration to the night,
carrying, like a candle’s flame, resolve,
because there is no other choice,
to find and follow the old road
toward uncertain light.

January 1 2020

Good Walk

You hit the limit of the leash
and wonder if it means you’re not to go,
but it’s just me, not woken.
I catch up.
We move on.
You poop twice.
Overall, you'd say,
it’s a good morning.

December 22 2019

Work

It isn't to see the world as a brightly colored place,
or to revel in all the tiny graces
and the great,
or to feel at home with happiness,
but to practice any virtue that you can,
in doubt and desperation,
when you yourself are stranded in the dark.

December 12 2019

Winter

The woods are denser,
now that snow has bowed the branches low
across the paths, to turn them into tunnels
only he can safely navigate.
I stoop to pass beneath the boughs of Damocles,
while Canada geese make a hell of a racket overhead.

Fall is leaving;
it's all beginning again.

December 4 2019

A Good Death

The final,
delighted
thought:
Oh, so
that's
why
.

December 2 2019

Neutrality

A gull surmounts the wind
and slides easily down the next dip,
keeping station a yard above the water
she’s inspecting for opportunity.
The air is like a glass of water, chilled
and dispensed from God’s refrigerator.
My dog is disappointed that his friend gave only a cursory sniff,
before rushing to the next adventure through the trees.
I am observant of the day, and its many reminders
that things after all exist
and will do with me what they please.

October 16 2019

tree tops

trees know how to nod their tops all right
at night when we walk our dogs beneath
they wash the sky with their bushy mops
and tell each other peace
we will not sleep tonight
like them
though one or two might
listen to the rushing of the air
up here where we rinse our hair in it

August 28 2019

Times Square, Hotel

So many lives to be understood:
the lithe brown boy in his white up-do,
fixing his makeup so fiercely in Sephora;
the happy patriotic cowboy
with his stars and stripes guitar,
skating through the square
in his underwear;
that burning man,
black as a silhouette, with eyes like sunsets;
and the unregarded,
anonymous in rhinestones,
flapping ties,
and income-strapped intent.
Too many asked me what they meant.

Now, here,
the lamp is kind.
It shuts out day
and leaves a dark so deep
that when at last sleep drowns me in its dreams,
the only faces left
are those I need to see.

August 26 2019

Locals

Someone must have spread the word:
This yard sale is men-only.
Never such a sight before:
In shorts and baseball caps they wander
by golf clubs, beer tap handles, drills,
and a band saw with its case ajar
to show the blade’s true quality.
These men are the town’s deep stratum,
seam of coal;
in vans and king cab pickups they patrol,
Sundays in the doughnut shop converse,
and greet close-cropped at the barber's.
Rooted, they uproot the trees.
In home-improvement stores they ask no questions;
stained, blunt-fingered hands heft lumber.
With box nails, PVC, and roadway tar,
the places that we live are,
well and poorly,
made by such as these.

August 18 2019

Cleaning

You'd almost think a storm was coming,
the way he stands behind me,
tail down,
or lies despondent on the kitchen floor.
But it's the vacuum and the broom that have him worrying.
A house this clean can only mean one thing:
that we are leaving--
never to return?

August 17 2019

Reactionary

Rhyme is overrated, so they say;
alliteration, too.*
I'll take whatever makes the music and imbue
each word with all the spirit that my skill commands
to make the poem true.

*But rhythm beats, at least.

August 17 2019

7/31/19

Rose of Sharon says to me
that summer's getting on.
Tiger lilies tell me Rose is right.
Fireflies don't blink as brightly
as before in the dusty wood
and stars are much too good these days
at calling it a night.

July 31 2019

Enough

It is a cup,
filled to the brim with days,
each filled to the brim with minutes
filled with all that life entails.
And if that's all there is, then it's enough;
the contents of this cup are rich as water
that quenches thirst and quickens us
and shows us in its crystal lens
the world and all its mystery,
enough for a life, and more.

July 25 2019

Phone time

My old watch has been waiting on the bureau,
counting seconds till I notice.
I'll put it on in memory
of measured years of service.

May 13 2019

Breakfast

Harried by sparrows, she finally flies
away in desperation.
Some other nest
must make this morning's breakfast.

May 13 2019

Untitled

Don't think that I've forgotten
that when the animal rode my shoulders
and mornings were the blackest,
you put fresh flowers on the list each week
and set them on the table
to keep me company.

May 11 2019

Absence

I haven't seen Rick here in many days.
With dog walk acquaintances you never know:
He could be gone for good
with his Ivan and his Annie,
or sick,
or just tired of this riverside,
which today is white with cold and silence.
And some of us are seasonal--
off to the golf course for the winter walks
and down to the sea in spring--
but as much as you can miss a man
whose last name you don't know,
I feel the absence of his genial shout
that says to hell with sadness
and all my wretched doubt.

February 9 2019

Bounty

Squirrels execute their difficult runs
along twisted branches with precision.
She worries that the Thanksgiving nuts we left
on the deck might weigh down their nests
past the breaking point.
I smile, imagining walnuts and pecans
stashed beside them while they sleep.
They probably store their food in other places,
but it charms me to suppose
they have that bounty close at paw.

December 8 2018

Leave It

I heard them say leave it
and I knew what they were talking about,
because the owl or whatever it was
had been killed some days ago
and it left its downy feathers
spread like snow on the sandy path.
Dogs take these things without reflection.
Death is just something to nose at
or carry along
an unwanted wing gripped tightly in the teeth
until a better toy presents itself,
perhaps a tennis ball or a stick.
I try to be a dog,
but being only human, fail.

December 7 2018

Recovery

It is more the way his body sinuous
makes an S of his spine
for his muscle and fur to follow--
one leg cocked, forefeet planted,
while his muzzle points the line
of his wariness--
than the difficult letters my frame can't fold into
but still can't keep from trying.

October 11 2018

Morning Walk

We wake up everyone.
Not a dog but knows we're passing.
I'm surprised the roses don't bark.

September 28 2018

Porches

Marshes have porches,
which comforts me.
I imagine my astral body standing
where the trees end
and the trail runs into mud
and tall salt grass,
thick as the fur of a yellow dog
lying at the foot of the steps.

August 9 2018