We Are Not Fully Born Until

We are not fully born until:

the last dream drops away
pretend is not a magic word
we fly no more in sleep

and slowly we perceive
that sometime in our rational days
we woke

and will not sleep again until

February 25 2010

An Explosion of Sudden Starlings

An explosion of sudden starlings takes us
slightly by surprise.
We did not expect them to appear
near here for weeks; but then,
this does explain why all the bushes speak.

Half align along the wire;
the rest fly farther into fog.
A row, a cloud; they take the forms
that suit each circumstance.
But I have barely time to wonder at their being here,
when looking up, I see that they are gone.

February 25 2010

The Crow Flies Low

The crow flies low,
an unexpected traveler
across a road that smaller wings
and hurrying things
normally patrol.

Its prize is only a feeder seed,
certainly a poor result,
but maybe at this winter's end
appropriate
and anyway something for
an empty craw.

It is hard to dislike a bird
that takes fortune where it finds it.
Maybe there's complaint, but who would not?
And never was a crow who cawed
when food was to be found
or in its beak.

February 19 2010

Before a Forecast Storm

They plane in toward the wire and then are lost,
but as we pass, their chuckling voices comment
on our passing.

So far I have seen tomorrow
in only a flake or two.

At the field, blue tufts of fur on the frozen ground
suggest without sound a death
here or near here. He takes no notice:
even scent is silent.

In this waiting calm,
squirrels are ubiquitous.
The quiet draws them out
to run across their rooftops,
unregarded by the passing cars.

Upstanding limbs of trees are bare and still
to let the winter pass from cloud to ground.

Another tree speaks noisily
about sparrows it conceals
in green.

We walk uphill through light that makes us,
like the sky and yards and houses,
luminous.

Looking out of doors I see
it still has not begun.

February 10 2010

It Is a Pleasure To Be Washed Up On This Sand

It is a pleasure to be washed up on this sand.
With each sip I marvel yet again. How, precisely,
did I elude those rocks that I had placed
to sink me, and ride rough currents,
channeled by those obstacles and
designed to crush in bewildering night,
to here?

It will not bear looking at--and yet again,
it may. Let me glance aside and let
internal eyes capture and contain
this miracle for my own posterity.

Meanwhile, I will struggle up the strand
to where the exotic trees stand
ready for my building, in anticipation of
your coming home.

February 4 2010

It Is a Quiet Loneliness

It is a quiet loneliness of the flesh
that may sometimes come sidling in,
behind the groceries,
unnoticed in the updating of lists,
and taking the farthest back seat
where the rearview mirror cannot see,
each time that we pick up or drop off.

At such times, it is a painful victory
to wake, to realize this unwanted guest,
and then I would wrap you to myself
like your warm blanket; I would hold
your precious head to mine, and fill
with its curves and hollows
my empty palms and fingers, telling you
and no one else that missing you
is more than loneliness can bear.

February 4 2010

When Making Stars

When making stars for your daughter,
it is important to be careful.
Try and retry as needed the initial folds,
but remember that mistakes can be recovered.
Understand that where the paper ends
is not the end; ends can be adjusted.
Force no point to grow by hasty pressure of
your thumbnail on the side. Trust
that you will find a giving place,
and that the star will grow with only
guidance from your hand.

January 26 2010

Flowers On a Table

In transition from one
frustration to the next,
I see that you have left
on the table
flowers,
whose portrait I wish I could paint.
Thank you.

January 26 2010

How And Why We Go Down

How and why we go down
regardless, sometimes we go down.
You know the fall: how dark,
how desperate,
how long.

Sometimes
we even ask the fall
to rescue us from
unguarded heights,

but other times
the fall commands, and who then
truly stands?

But if you fall,
if you cannot hear me call to say
that you will climb back up one day, at least
I would throw down flowers;

I would throw down flowers
if it is all I can do;
I would throw down flowers
for you.

January 15 2010

The Shadows of a Tree

In the wind shadow of this tree,
the ground is bare.
In the sun shadow of this tree,
the snow remains.
One tree,
two shadows.
And the image I remember
makes a third.

January 9 2010

On a Snowy Hill

They go down the hill
not knowing
this sled's the one I gave you
thirty years ago
not knowing
they'd be going down this hill
today.

January 9 2010

Jake the Fly

I haven't met Jake the fly
and frankly hope I don't.
She found his sister Francine
in the bathroom
dead
today
and together we returned her
to the earth with tears and prayer.

If I met Jake
tonight or tomorrow,
what could I possibly do or say?

January 3 2010

The Soldier Left

The soldier left
to start his tour of duty
while the snow fell,
leaving family and friends.
For a long time he had lived at home
building and tending
keeping his appointed rounds
and, recently,
remembering,
till now he was ready to serve again.

Next day the snow
fell from trees and telephone wires
on yards and streets
past the windows of those
he left behind
gently
quietly
peacefully.

In memory of Jim O'Brien

January 1 2010

For Two Newborns

Ring a thousand bells; send out
the paper cranes across each valley,
and let the morning shout.
Rouse the neighbors; light
the signal fires to spread
the news and pull with coffee
every laggard from his bed.
Turn on the television early,
give the anchors all new leads;
set the dogs to barking,
wake the birds up in their trees.
Send out to the music shop
for their very largest drum
and beat a proud tattoo to tell
the world that they have come.

In honor of Rose and Lina

December 30 2009

Ave, Maria

Ave, Maria.
Again you find me here;
again I greet you
with the selfsame wonder
in my heart. Again I feel
how gladly I
my small pretensions give away
to earn your smile. Again
I ask you what you made
of all those things you kept
and pondered in your heart,
and ask you to remember me,
and all the mothers like you
who have borne a sweet beginning
to the world.

December 24 2009

For a Dog Who Is Still Here

The north wind drives him back upon his track
to visit every scent he missed before.
The snow is deep, the ice is black,
and we are many paces from our door,
and I would rather take a different tack
than linger longer here beside the shore.
But he is old, and soon may leave the pack,
so I will stay with him and wait a little more.

January 7 2010

I Remember When We Came Here

I remember when we came here
it was the morning of a spring.
Then there were both snow
and the promise of new flowers
in the scent of damp earth warmed
by an optimistic sun.

They took the birdbath with them,
as I might have known,
and the strawberries forecast
by the agent were not there.
But certain plants did grow
that first time summer came
to see us in our yard,
and every step across the grass
was light with opportunity.

In this opposing season when
the dark is always near,
each patch uncovered by the sun
is radiant with yearning,
and these heady exhalations
quicken welcome memory:
Look, how where the dawn you found
is where you soon may be.

January 21 2010

The Winter Bear

The winter bear reached out one paw
past autumn's end and dealt
a single blow,
cuffing us back to our den.

We cubs were not dismayed
but the lesson was enforced:
Children, you are excited by
this change, this coming joy;
be calm. Your rampant play
will end in tears and enmity.

But like the young we are,
we rashly dared the snow,
in careless gambols threatening
each other and upsetting,
forgetting till we felt the paw
of the winter bear again.

December 21 2009

On a Christmas Pageant Day

They are eating clementines and practicing
riotous, illogical skips; I am in the yard,
cleaning up and noticing
how parenthood is given without regard
to who you are. Later, an angel

skips through the living room
on her way to church. There, in the
awkward dark, surrounded by cameras
and attentive close relations,
I see a heavenly host, none more than
four feet high and each unsure how to
wave her alleluia

while shepherds watch their parents, and behind,
the woman comforting her baby Jesus
is suddenly motherhood personified

and over all is felt perhaps by some at last
the possibility
of a kind and infant king.

December 14 2009

For a Dog Who Has Gone

I had no time to be sad
when she first told me,
but believe me now,
though my emotion is no doubt
entangled with my web
of work and shoulds and wants,
I would gladly pull your ears
and make your eyes disappear
into that chocolate fur,
and throw practically any ball
you wanted me to, if you
would only come sniffing to the door
in search of him, whom I cannot
and would not
tell that you are gone.

December 2 2009

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