In a Country of Strangers

November 5, 2024

The field is fewer,

tall and leaning,

our shadows long

leaving the woods,

surrendered to sky

in the buoyant dim,

longing for reason,

slowly depleting

where all things succumb,

heaven vast and void,

if ever we all return.

Early November

  

Paisleyed with frost

   

When the furnace awoke me

it was early November

but late in my life,

and lost in the dark,

I needed to steady myself.

This was the window,

Paisleyed with frost,

and that was the night,

Jupiter leering

in the black woods.

This was Pandora,

streaming New Age,

but the box

had been opened

long ago.

And that was my hand,

holding the pen,

touching no one.

Workshop of the Mind

Cellos at sunset

Remnants in jars on the shelves

Memories backlit

In the Company of Oaks

Holding their leaves

In the company of oaks,

bright-bronzed and taller

than the lowering sun,

slow dancing in the chill wind,

last trees in the woods still awake,

holding their leaves

when most of the others

have turned themselves

into pillars of light,

the oaks holding their leaves

as if their lives depended on it,

sighing in honeyed light,

holding their leaves

close to their bones,

loving what is mortal

while they can,

and when the time comes,

letting it go.

—after Mary Oliver's In Blackwater Woods

In a Fallow Field

 

I waited

in the goldenrod field

bearded by autumn

mature and hoary

at the end of function

in the warming sun

I waited

and drifted back

into that dream

where my daughter

was not dead.

The Earth Rolls Back

The earth rolls back,

the big red sun

sinks behind your ridge,

and you seem farther gone,

the valley blue between us,

deeper, wider with nightfall.

I watch it go down, I try

to empty my mind

in the failing light.

I do not know which to prefer,

the owl calling in twilight,

or just after.

—with a thought from Wallace Stevens

Sundown in the Maples

 

Under a sugar

In my eightieth October

I think I know what's coming—

This world will become more and more beautiful

Until I can't stand it anymore

And vanish into it,

One with the earth in the end.

—with lines by D. Nurkse

Take Down the Sun

Take down the sun.

          Put it in your heart.

Take down the moon.

          Put it in your belly.

Take down the Big Dipper.

          Merge with the Northern Star.

— based on ancient Taoist texts, translated by Deng Ming-Dao

Spellbound

Mid-October. Click to enlarge.

By twilight and owlcall

we fell asleep on the porch,

side by side.

When we awoke

it was this life,

smelling of wet dog.

Find a Place

Sugar Camp

   

Where the air is fresh

Slip into serenity

The point is to live

Grief

New York City, April 2008

This was the city

Magnolias fell on concrete

This was the farewell

When Long Enough in October Woods

The mind comes running

Like a wild thing and lies down

On a bed of leaves

—with lines by Mary Oliver