So Recklessly We Spent those Days

So recklessly we spent those days,
blinded in our youth to Eden
we were living in, nor knew a need
to question or to savor. One
with the headlong moment,
friend to our cousin trees and paths,
familiar as a living room and furniture.

And how else should we live?
No other way; each day we greedily consumed
and took its nourishment,
eating the ever-renewing souls
of sunshine and the leaf,
the dirt road and the pond,
growing within ourselves
new landscapes, whose rooted ways
can guide us as they did
back then.

December 1 2009

When You Said Morning

When you said morning on the street today
it sounded so exactly like
what I imagined I remembered
all the farmers to have said,
days in layers,
each preceding year--
in the fraudulent cool of summer mornings
when potatoes can be dug,
in the frank and snapping cold of winter
when the bare ground breaks beneath your numbing feet;
going in and out of odorous hardware stores
where bins of bolts await inspection
and the dry camaraderie drones,
or in the chemical garage where ancient drawers
hold dusty buckets for the children under
shelves of fragrant DDT. When you said morning
I saw postal trucks and gardens, old
canoes and hillsides paved with needles
slippery to the foot and hidden wintergreen
where once we ate and once I mourned,
fallen apples surrounding the trees
and waiting to be gathered up in baskets for the pie,
and brooks whose rusty brown contains both leeches
and the tiniest of fish and are too wide
for one revered old man to step across;
and long before, that morning
racing down the crystal soaking frozen lawn
barefoot coming home from half a world away
across the sharpest of driveway stone
to berries
in a well-remembered bowl;
when you said morning.

November 10 2009

Because It Is This Fragile Moment

Because it is this fragile moment
I will stay.
Her cheek is round against my pillow where
she crept while I was sleeping and

on that curve her lashes tangent lie
an offhand touch of beauty looks
so easy she is breathing
exhalations I can only see and she

does not know I watch and will
not wake her will not
break
this fragile moment.

November 2 2009

This Wind Will Sweep the Branches Clean

This wind will sweep the branches clean of leaves,
and in that hurly-burly I
am something like a tree.
Who does not have leaves to shake?
Would not feel that strenuous comb
pulled through her hair
and shout a-hilltop,
For the winter I am free!
These planetary stirrings are our saving
every season; are the reason
we can make ourselves anew,
keeping what we are
and how we grew,
and sending all the rest to fill the sky.

October 31 2009

Here's to the Young Couple

Here's to the young couple
so foolishly in love,
separate in their churches but
determined in their hearts.
Such simple children, they said; how long
can such a union last? But look:
as if their hearts are amber, still,
long decades and a life along,
past children of their own
and all the accidents and happiness
that we are bound to, see
the couple even now and ever
proof against the end:
twin souls unchanging, young,
and foolishly in love.

In memory of Mary Himelrick

October 22 2009

Meaning Shared

Meaning shared
is meaning multiplied.
Listen to the echoes of your thought
resounding down the avenues of other minds,
transmuting as they travel
till their timbre tolls
ten thousand different tones:
successive inspirations taking flight,
startled into being by this novel light.

October 22 2009

The Dog Is Crooked As He Lies

The dog is crooked as he lies.
His tail is serpentine.
His simple angularity--
nose on paw,
eyes uptilted under hopeful brow,
one leg stretched out on the rug behind
forgotten as an orphaned sock--
speak his artless innocence.
Who would not have
such a being for a friend?

October 22 2009

To Certain Poets, on Their Cryptic Poetry

Through this I see that there is a particular twist in the air--
whose shape these words express
best, though certainly bereft of meaning.
This glossy paraphernalia wily gleams,
suffering much that I could not design--
again, a heart's impulse, recorded in the sound of phrases,
not in what they say. So much we moderns learned;
and to our certain if as yet unfelt regret.

What shouts of homecoming we would cry,
if once our tongues could be unlocked.
It would be like turning around
all at once,
to see the way behind made clear,
all the tortured turnings straightened
and the road before an easy and familiar path at whose end
family and fellowship lie waiting for our song.

Too long have we flown with the daring boy; consider if you will
(or suppress)
your readiness to admit the thought
of walking in a slightly different way,
married to the sound and meaning both,
and the yearning in your floating feet
to touch the earth again.

October 21 2009

Love When

Love when
is only love when
always is the when.

October 12 2009

Poetic dictum

(Overly clever)

A poem should be as long as it is supposed to be.

They Are in the Pictures

They are in the pictures,
unconscious in this happy window
of anything but the day,
and it is my firmest resolution
when next we take them
to remain within. It is better by so much
more than I can tell, to look out from a frame
than in.

October 7 2009

But This Is How We Go On

But this is how we go on
one stone to another,
hoping always that our foot
will find the next and that
there is a next to find.
And beyond that who can say,
except
that if into the stream we do descend,
we know there is a bottom and depend
on water just to wash us,
and not to be our end.

October 7 2009

Falling, They Are Falling

A piece about Autumn.

Falling, they are falling.
I am looking out the red among the green,
knowing they are what interests you.
Suddenly, flying things invest the air,
and I am in an unexpected reef.
Near the surface the schools are practicing departure:
wheel right,
moving float,
vertical shift,
dart left,
return
into the oval formation;
now rest,
and discuss with your neighbors on each branch.
A singleton rockets up before my face;
bottom feeders scour the roads,
mindful only of the harvest till
the subtle signal comes to leave
and they are one,
flying through the falling and
going, they are gone.

October 5 2009 - January 21 2010

Her Hair Is in Happy Disarray

Her hair is in happy disarray,
as are her teeth, which she gladly bares
for the camera to show that precious gap
whose softness she must often touch,
marveling at the newness of a painless loss.
The towel round her shoulders is a cape
whose roughness I can feel,
protecting shivering limbs
that scorn protection in the sun.

Is this a photograph or memory?
Something reaching from the frame
provokes my heart to joy.

October 14 2009

Before They Put the Barriers Up

Before they put the barriers up,
let us go down to the beach again.
You will smell something invisible;
I will think indefinite thoughts.
Down the narrow reach of sand
between the wall and sea,
we each will seek.

September 30 2009

Things of Constant Worth

Things of constant worth are these:
parental diligence
kindness in adversity
remembering to fold laundry
rubbing his old ears each morning
being there
knowing that a puzzle may be refused
continuing to look for God
admiring intelligence only just so much
and grasping loosely in one's open hand
the strings and echoes of this green and vibrant world.

With these you may be present in many hardships and take
no lasting injury.

September 25 2009

These Days Prepare Our Minds

These days prepare our minds for sleep.
By the brightness of the brick
or sunlight's fall on tar,
we are not misled into summer.
Indeed, we read it in the quiet streets
and the subtle chill that hides behind
heat's plausible facade:
The longer days are over;
dress your children warmly,
prepare your home and wait
for winter's celebrations in the dark.

September 16 2009

If the Next One's Mine

Now that we're all soldiers
if the next one's mine
I know you'll understand
why it's okay.

When the blood has been collected
and the money all disbursed,
what's left for us to do but take our battle stations,
in traffic jams and kitchens,
cubicles and cabs,
milking sheds and senior homes,
and classrooms for the young?
Front lines all,
and all across the country all
are drafted to this cause.

And some would even say they're glad,
the way the disused sword is glad
when the armorer finally takes it up
to give it a useful edge;
since now our long futility
at least for now is done:
At last we have a goal,
unwanted but worth dying for;
at last we know our mission.

And even if I am not glad,
if I, like you, had other ends in mind,
there's still a consolation I can find
in knowing that the ultimate goal is served,
as each life strengthens my conviction
that we will prove with justice on the enemy
that war is not the way.

Now that we're all soldiers
if the next one's mine
remember this, with me:
No one dies in vain.

October 12 2001

Labor Day

The last of the produce is coming in;
a laughable crop in all,
consistent with our care and not seriously to be regretted.
A laggard half-green tomato here,
a cucumber swollen with forgetfulness
retrieved from beneath a stiffening leaf,
and the hysterical, half-parched basil,
nervously bursting into flower at the thought
that though we say we prize it
still we do not pick or pinch it back.

Today we are out walking,
harvesting the remnants of the summer;
a few weak sheaves of sunlight,
a precious bit of warmth beneath the breeze
to ease old faithful canine bones.
Ahead we see hurrying on the season
flowing over the bending grass,
like the children running into their future and
outpacing loving us.
If we are wise, we will notice the reddening leaves
disregarded in their flight,
and see in them the early springing into life
of life's next yield,
sweet respite till the spring.

September 9 2009

After All the Murders of the Summer

After all the murders of the summer,
both real and contemplated,
the sharp delineation of the trees,
cut by an unexpected chill whose breath
is redolent of uniforms and welcome wool,
fills us brimtop with anticipation.
It is like hearing when you thought yourself alone
the nearby step of some great giant:
Suddenly, so little time left to teach her
how to ride her bicycle.

August 27 2009

There in the Spirit

There in the spirit walks my daughter, she
unconscious as that her hair is brown,
what atmosphere she cleaves. Her eyes
are on her play, no more, and more
would be much less. Her understanding
here surpasses mine: she and life
are so in love
they know and move together,
near as may be one without
a thought of separation.
Let them not observe me standing here,
dull-witted giant, dimly grasping,
fondly hoping, and earnestly trying to believe.

October 16 2009

Out There Where There Ought to Be

Out there where there ought to be an edge,
the sea and sky are one,
and in that ambiguity floats
the lighthouse pulled from service,
now a lonely, blinded I.

Locate the gulls by their pump-handle cry;
the greys are driftwood on an airy tide.
Whether they float or fly:
Is it important to decide?
From the lighthouse comes
no answer. Its days of definition
are now over.

Swimming and swimming an endless water,
we make for land instinctively.
Dry ground and certain answers are
the signposts and the goals we want to touch.
So much we are, but there is more:
When willingly our faces face the waves,
our souls commit to doubt,
our minds permit confusion and
we gladly turn our backs upon the shore.

December 24 2009

Sorry, can't help it

Realized I can't write stuff without posting it here, even if it means not being able to submit it to one journal. For one thing, I want to push it out to the world too much, and I haven't the patience to wait months for stuff to be rejected. For another, I can't follow a rule like "post stuff you don't think will get published"--I have no idea what constitutes publishable poetry, and anyway I wouldn't want to post stuff I think is second-rate; what kind of message does that send to me or you?

So I hope to publish more here soon; I'll figure out some other way to get to that journal later on.

All the Day

All the day, all the day;
that orange line of shore
beneath the distant, dusted hills;
the airplane clatters over swimming
sideways through the blue.
The hydrant's white, geranium's red,
the angled lines of rooftops, each
float distinct,
brilliant in the summer air as boats
that shimmer on the sea.

August 13 2009

Speak; Tell Me

Speak; tell me
first to whom I am speaking and next
what you are trying to say. Speak;
clarify first these raindrops and this cluttered pool
of light in which I listen and you
speak. Tell me
in which of these particulars you most clearly
speak, and I will listen.

July 25 2009