***
The Sky is Green
Beyond the field, trees—
beyond the trees, sky—
meanwhile a deer
(most likely a buck)
escapes thrashing into a ravine
as the deaf dogs forge ahead.
So I listen for them,
pausing to consider the setting
before following a dark sump
towards the spring, angling right
with the dogs at the journey’s far end
as the aquamarine sky
becomes night
through a fringe of bare trees.
***
Afterlife
I lift the door of the nest box
to see fluffy quadruplets
lying on a cupped bed
of dry grass.
Asleep they seem
entranced by osmosis,
acquiring through dreams
lofty knowledge
of green fields and high summer.
Still dead to the world a day later
they fledge, tumbling to earth
in a tuck on quelled wings.
***
Waiting in an Open Doorway
Near the summery finale of a week
in which the fall equinox passed, I sit and listen
to the altering state of things. Already
the wind is changing position; the temperature drops;
a sudden gust and leaves cascade off the aspen
onto my head, glancing through to skitter
scratchily on the faux-tile floor of the kitchen.
A pair of engaged damsel flies buzz
arched and entangled, coupled at the octagonal
screen at the gable in a dance of discovery, finding
no fabled way out. I too wish to return
where I have not skinny-dipped once all summer.
Before the big drop-off I should walk
in my paint-splattered cut-offs to dabble perhaps
more than just ten toes in the water, closing my eyes
to the dogs splashing forth in the shallows.
***
Persevering
Am I to be disconsolate forevermore?
It’s not difficult inhabiting that frame
of reference. It suits me. I mourn
the very scar of the earth fast disappearing
beneath the new grass covering your grave.
I feel sad in the afternoon, encountering silence.
Sighing, my lungs exhale only unutterable words,
until I remember our football team, now winning.
It is that time of year. The leaves are constantly turning—
some red, some yellow. The air is so clear and warm
these first few perfect fall days. I accept it
as a kind of responsibility, to enjoy them all
in your memory. Should I add, as well,
the cat misses you too?
***
Words were First Tangible Things
Had I not already possessed the idea of the fox
perhaps I would not have been able to see it,
for my glasses lie on the cherry hall table
alongside the old Underwood typewriter
that sits prominently in place only
to remind me there once was a time
when words were first tangible things.
But now it must be the idea was there even before
the recognition of what I saw, because—and this
is the main thing—I saw the fox
for the thing it was (is that accurate?
“thing” “it was”?) and not just some amorphous
unidentifiable blob, which is what my eyes detected,
not seeing at first—my default setting—anything at all
clearly.
Oh reader, dear reader, believe me
when I say the world of the mind and the world
of the world are one and the same,
and yet not. Philosophy pretends
to know what this means. Let’s just say
I’ve learned what life is: the personal
exploration into the duality of things.
All I know is what I know and see, and what I see
is a fox through my window, standing aloof on the snow.
I see my reflection in the glass just as well,
but that means not as much, somehow.
I only wish to retrieve my glasses so as not to miss out
on viewing something essential and tangible or, in other words,
real. The strange thing is the fox has no idea
I am here. It walks to the spent burn pile down below
the old hickory
and paws in the crusty snow, concerned only with its own hunger
I guess, and not at all with its being caught out
being, however imperfectly, observed.
***
Looking Through Glass, Darkly
The cat flicks
and curls her tail, which
like the halting arm
of an erratic metronome
divides the seconds
between desire and intention
as she sits at the window
watching a world of oblivious finches
beyond her possession.
***
October 19, 2009
Leaves
in yellow light
fall tipping
one way
and another
on still Autumn
air.
I think
and dream leaves,
limbs exposed,
stripped bare
as the trees
holding my breath
in the yard,
discerning
neither they
nor I
are quite quiet,
yet.
***
Work in Progress
I feel your fingers caressing,
smoothing, searching for a way
in. At least that is how it feels
at the penetrable surface
you reveal me to be.
I yearn to suggest
all the beautiful forms
residing within,
but there are too many choices
and possibilities confound
you and me.
Eventually, though, you must decide,
as is your task and privilege,
to determine first
the one thing, then the next,
and so be the arbiter of my being.
I feel your fingernail tapping
like a wood chisel, testing, testing,
and my body clenches tight while I wait—
wait for you to release me
from this unformed existence,
and bestow on us both the crux
of the divined.
***
Prescription for Living
—after a poem by Anna Akhmatova
I will teach myself to live simply,
to rise with the sun and walk in the dew,
and toil happily with hoe and rake
in the back garden under a benevolent sky.
I will go to the fields and cool woods and stream
to pick black caps and red raspberries
at my leisure—returning sated, fingers stained purple,
to drink water from the rusting hand pump
in the shaded front yard.
I may stop and listen to the whispering bluebird
perched on a high bough, and feel my heart settle
as I close my eyes, perhaps waking
only when the cat stops to lick my drooping hand
with her dry raspy tongue.
Looking about again, watching bunnies leap
one another in a low-slanting light,
I shall know all is sufficient for God’s purpose.
>
May I always remember and never forget
this world is truly a wonderful place,
mine to enjoy.
***
The Fall
An apple is a tempting fruit,
Its skin reflects the light;
But minds once sound were deaf and dumb
When innocent mouths did bite.
Or if it were a green and gritty pear
As much the pair did gain in loss.
It set their teeth on edge no less
To taste its pithy dross.
***
The Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge
By the time Adam returned, the Serpent
had already proved to Eve’s satisfaction
that God had not spoken the truth—and so seduced her
by touching, coiling about, and finally mouthing
the forbidden fruit, without any apparent dire result.
“See?” He triumphantly assured her. “You surely will not die.
Rather, you will become as God Himself, full of knowledge.”
And so eager to believe, she bit and knew too.
Later, in turn offering the same revelation, she related
the tale and stood naked before Adam as proof.
“See? I am that I was,” she exclaimed. Intrigued
and yet innocent, immersed obliviously in good, he still hesitated
before taking the proffer of her hand, knowing
in his limited way (if God was still to be trusted)
Eve’s disobedience condemned them to separation
even were he to refuse. And so, Adam accepted the gift,
choosing death in the Garden over life eternal, alone.
***
Shiva
Not five minutes ago
while mowing the lawn
I thought about writing this poem to you.
It has now gotten too dark to see
so I stand alone in the cool grass
eating a peach beneath a quiet poplar tree.
The morning breeze may shake its leaves
or maybe the rain in the night
should it come.
Who can know?
It could even shake should the earth tremor
somehow.
I eat the peach as I think of you.
I bite at the skin, the flesh gushes.
Do you know, across the world, what I am thinking?
I wonder, Shiva, if you will destroy me
or if I will destroy you
or if the world will destroy the both of us, together.
Who can tell? It is sth beyond knowing.
Perhaps I should concern myself only
with devouring this peach, so soft, juicy, and sweet.
***
Desire
Half awake
I stood at the sander
dreaming of you
dreaming a poem
half-composed in my mind.
Fourteen years later
everything still resides in the aether.
A red doe
splashes in shallow pond water
with her two spotted fawns.
I wish you could see.
***
Felicity
for Aisha
If my love lies, then she does flatter me,
Coaxing my doubt towards certainty;
But though words are said in seeming truth,
Of her real intent I have no proof.
I wish only to see her emerald eyes,
And be assured her smile conveys no compromise.
Instead, awake, I listen through the night
To her words’ artful echo, for if they be right
Then I most surely must be wrong to doubt her love:
She is far more fair and pure than I could prove.
But if they be false, then so is she,
Yet gladly would I lie with her, in complicity.
5/4 2002
***
Regret
for Robbie
I stand at the top of the hill
in silence surrounded by woods
and deep snow.
You wanted only this—
to feel the calm
before descent
and a semblance of control
over an unbroken trail.
Instead, I taught you to herringbone;
forced to climb beyond your capability,
you had no choice but to sideslip
and laugh, falling
all the way down.
I think of that day now
standing here all alone
wishing I could bring you along.
***
Before Valentine’s Day
Through binoculars, I spy on bluebirds
just beginning to titterflutter
in the feathery tips of dead goldenrod weeds.
Sunshine combines with the ubiquitous snow.
Behind me,
orange coal decays like a radionucleoid
making steam of a stewpot of H2O.
The cat lies curled
into a circle of its own contentment
on the red tile hearth under the stove.
Above the couch, a man shooting rail
stands balanced on a flatboat, gun raised,
poised for the imminent explosion
that never comes.
How would it be to be
forever waiting at the cusp of realization?
(I mean as I am now.)
Tell me you don’t know,
or tell me you do.
I will confess as much… back to you.
***
Enchantment
A cool wind
preceding dark sky
wafts clouds
of pollen like yellow smoke
over recoiling spruce trees.
My Maya (dear
child of Mongols on a high steppe plane)
steers an imaginary pony
so happily undeterred by incipient rain
I pause to wonder—which of us,
what of our relative experience,
is supposedly deficient?
***
Easy Way Out
A crow
slides over a spruce
and rows behind the barn
on a breeze.
Mid-night
dissonance strums
through a line
picked up through the headboard
at the west gable end
of all dreams.
I escape,
beckoning, making the crow
caw and turn—
plucking me up
out of body.
***
Type
In the beginning was the Word…
Potentially any line
composes an epiphany.
I remember my father saying
“He’s going to be a writer,”
joy creating a bond
based on the simple desire
to produce, if not justify,
a phrase.
He saw in my pursuit
the succession of generations:
exchanging script for print.
I saw lines composed
clinking atop the linotype, standing close
to an ingot dissolving in purgatory.
I watched; I wondered.
Disoriented by their wayward direction,
I puzzled
at the meaning of cold hardened slugs
aligned into galleys of proof,
set fast against a changeable world.
All these years later
I seek still to feel the imprint of malleable lead
formed into letters, pressed onto paper,
before consignment to the oblivion of hell
where neither word nor flesh prevail.
I chase my father’s words;
I choose my own,
&nb
sp; drawing from a poisoned well.
***
Imagining the Future without You
It’s not hard to think
those hands, those feet, those bland
blue eyes you gave me
lie contained in transcendental dust
beneath this gray engraved stone bearing your name.
I stand here now before you
with my own hands contained in creased
pants, the flesh of my feet clad
in shined wingtips, eyeing this place you chose
for us to be together.
I feel a lack of substance, a failure of essence
in the cool breeze touching my cheek,
and I surrender, closing my eyes, taking in a full
measure of breath, holding it
out of a sheer, willful desire to do so.
I, whom am still able to breathe in the moment,
pause to consider a time still to come
and a time already gone forever.
I remember you
sitting in a curled white and gray photo
taken the year before I came along, your legs
tucked obliquely to one side beneath a pleated dress
pressed flat on the late summer’s grass;
you are not yet showing and so neither am I,
yet here I am making an appearance before you,
imaging you as you were, realizing
after all these years
I can’t recall what flowers to get you.
***