Immortal for Now

The young admire

iconoclasts,

those who create

the world afresh

by somersault,

the risk-takers,

the also-young,

erupting with glee,

waving their arms

in the air like ripening

wheat in the wind, like

you before you knew.

-

Force of Continuance

Last flowering of a 200-year-old sugar maple.

The tallest tree

has fallen

in these woods

brought down 

by thaw by wind

by gravity by time,

its will so strong

I find it blooming

where it lies.

Art needs no 

reason but the act

of its making.

-

Riding Out the Storm

Burrow in to the

bright stillness

at your center,

hone your

antennae,

from here the

maddening swirl

of the fantastic

holds no fear.

-

Sun Again

Sun is in the leaves again

I think I see you in the wind

but then I think I see the wind

–Malachi Black

-

Seafood

Jostled, buttered, lined up for more,

flesh demands flesh,

voracious, ravenous, dangerous,

swarming agape port to port

between thickening oceans of waste,

eating ourselves into decline.

-

The Senses

How strange to be alive

standing in the wind

under the streaming willow.

–based on a 19th Century haiku






-

Ascetics

A high bridge

and a long lens

level us with the raven,

secretive creature of myth

and inaccessible roosts

in use for centuries,

wary of human contact,

a hundred feet above

the swollen river,

adding its complaints

to the churning rapids.

Maybe the nest is nearby,

generations of sticks

heaped in the girders.

The raven won't leave.

Where they go

on migration

is not known.

-

Everything

Morning is

served on

a silver tray

maypoles

erupting

in rain

settling us

in a season

of gain

what more

could we want

but the day?

-

Smallness

Stop waiting for the great.

Bend down and touch

the treasures of the small

swirling at your feet.

––paraphrased from Deng Ming-Dao

-

Camera Obscura

Dogs think deeply,

turning tail when

I move in close,

wide-angling,

sensible creatures,

moreso than me,

suffering my

soul-stealing.

See how they shy

from my craving

for images,

my spirit-stalking?

-

Experience

Violets shiver in an east wind

whose source is the past.

Brown sycamore leaves spin on the porch,

superannuated pine needles litter the roof.

You know by experience, the gutters will clog.

You know by experience, you must act for yourself.

Determined to revel in the storms of this season,

you risk the ladder one more time,

and you cut the gutters down.

-

Missing the Sublime

The trees smoked

in sunrise, frost

               evanescent as text.

Your great regret,

your common lesson:

               You left for town

and didn't stay

to be what happened next.

-

Nativity

You stood

in a leaden rain

that's ended in fog

grounded cloud

pierced by crows

announcing

your presence

blessed by nativity

including your own

for what is the earth

except yourself

and the charm

of its theme

is upon you.

-

Emergence

April afternoons of sun and cloud

The snakes untangle underground

And join us on the surface,


Tasting the sweet air,

The light enlarging our days;

It makes you glad for beauty


Like that, casual and intense,

Lasting as long as the seasons last,

Outlasting us, with any luck.

-

Dining Outside after Sunset In April

Doves sighing in the roofless silo where the barn used to be,

Stars appearing so thick they shudder through a southern breeze,

A few words shared, angular amid the gleaming notes of frogsong,

Better to just listen, moving closer to the fire,

Watching the empty wine bottle soften in the embers,

Sidereal all the long night and smelling of smoke,

Nothing to fear but memory, disconnected.

-

Lineup

We lined up

on the road then

on the walk

then at the bar

then at the gate

then on the stairs,

then at the cash

machine then in our seats

to see the lineup spread

before us then we watched

the linescore build and

cheered when one misguided

soul broke free and ran

the outfield shirttails

flying arms windmilling

impulse now a costumed

character we applauded but

did not condone, officially,

falling into line again.



-

Alone

Casselman River at Pinkerton Horn

On the bridge

high over the

river alone

with the wind

and the soaring

birds alone with

your thoughts in

the loud silence

and the sun

slipping down,

breathe deeply

what vanishes.





-

Local News

The hill gives us more sky

when we're on it

watching the storm come

wind rising in the woods

a phalanx of charging cloud

the length of our world

hard rain behind it

arousing the hylas;

it seems important.

-

Yet the Sky

"We all look up

to the blue sky

for comfort, but

nothing appears there

nothing comforts

nothing answers us––

& so we die––,"

Coleridge wrote

in his notebook.

Perhaps, and yet,

for now,

we have the sky.




-

Down

Plucking geese

old folks say

in snow

like this

vanishing into

the pond as if

into another

realm we

pull the spiles

from maples

pancakes

come morning.

-

Last Snow

"Don't insist on understanding new things,

But try with your whole self,

With patience, effort, and method,

To comprehend obvious truths."


Love and death are the basics of life,

Cycles unto themselves,

And all we really care about,

Passing from one reality to another.

–with a quote from Simone Weil.

-