Pink at Last

Moments before last sunrise of the year

last day beginning pink in the frozen mists

grounded and in flight, days to years to eons,

what time makes of us we have come to understand,

grounded and in flight, moments before last.

Staying Home

Roofs through trees.

Insular snow

year's clatter subsiding

warm under roofs

in the company of friends

we put away our devices

this is the real world.

Mouse Story

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In new snow we learn of the white-footed mouse

up from the warmth between weedthatch and drift

to wander the surface in moonlight

pausing to dine upon goldenrod seeds

before leaping away in common panic

or perhaps in uncommon joy,

we can decide:

either the flight of the merciless owl,

or the furred pleasures of its own kind,

depending upon our ultimate mood

and the strength of our need to conjure an end.

Hit

Nothing could be done,

they stopped the truck and stood in blowing snow,

the girls crying and talking

to the damaged, frightened animal,

but nothing could be done.

Their tracks were alone in the drifts,

the wind moaned in the woods;

under it all the earth was soft and moist,

yellow clay stuck to the shovel

and froze on the blade.

Beneath the twisted apple tree

the mound is surprisingly high.

Ashes and bones,

ashes and bones,

thus do i civilize the field.

Slingshot

Fire in the snow as the year turns

against the cold and the ice in the ground

against the fear and the ice in our hearts


We've whipped past our star once again

and we haven't lost faith in the goodness of man

not completely


Launched by the gravities into the silence of space

and so by the gravities shall we be returned

to our orbit and order.

Breaker

The snow lies blue and unbroken.

Desperate to save himself

from the spin of their devices

he throws the main,

motors die in sighs,

the house holds its breath,

and in the quiet cooling dark

he believes her.

Slowing

Fire in

the stove

smoke in

the flue

powering

down to

my own

dormancy

hoping

to begin

anew.

Reassurance

There are things

we live among

that hold us still

primary singular things

the reed under snow

the post in the water

the sky the flat sky

we believe in light

the feather on the pond.

We are always wrong

you about me

me about you

though the things

we live among

are right

and to see them

is to know.

The Road

Nightfall at the end of autumn.

Shines with rain

soon ice

soon snow

soon drifts

unbroken dunes

with any luck

too deep for trucks

a realm of silence

slowing the quickest day

until the township plow.

Storm Warning

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Skyline where tomorrow makes its stand

subtle as the storm begins to brew

i ask for nothing but to watch the woods

fill up with snow in the company of dogs

and other loving souls too few who think

they know me as i am and will be still

safe and free to ache in the bliss of the blizz.

So Sudden, So Fierce

The woods exposed for what they are

most of the time

yet we think of them

in leaves.


In the dark we recognized each other.


Now with old age nearly beginning

do we dare confess

even to the smallest joys

as their disappearance approaches?

The Early Dark

Afield in the rain in the early dark

an easy rain tapping in the early dark

tapping overhead in the early dark

soaking us through in the early dark

the death of a child

the death of a child

afield in the easy rain tapping.

Steadied by Home Despite Mayans

It may seem that time is coming to an end

if we let ourselves give in to fear.

Lucky for us we live in a world of seasons.

We can spend the day in the comforts of home,

and it would be wrong to think what we felt there

was somehow shrunken or partial

just because we never left the yard.

Here, too, is the grandeur and splendor of the world,

time circling back on itself, hungry for its own tail.

–with clauses adapted from Louise Glück

Relentless

The next system moves in

dispassionate and unrelenting

for that is the nature of time

breaking over us like a great wave

leaving us gasping at what we do to each other.

The past is happening even now.

We Must

Act.

A Promise of Geminids

A quieter morning

for the ice,

frost runing off

with the shadows,

hard cold facts

evanescing in light,

a pigment-dyed sky

promising meteors

over the hill.

She was like that.

In memory of Kelly Jean O'Brien

on the 42nd anniversary of her birth.

The Sound of Water

Please click to enlarge.

The dogs listen in the wetland

under the thatch where the live things move

under new snow were the spring moves

on its way to the rill in the woods

on its way to the creek in the valley

on its way to the river on its way on its way

to the bay and the sea and the mixing currents

of the planet on its way 'round the sun in the spin of forever

when we listen close enough we can hear it too for awhile.

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Nearly Night

Nearly night

Birch and water nearly bright,

Wandering the fields in rain

Rapt in a story he won't tell,

An old refrain of foolish love

Of leaping up and falling back.


Sleep well dear friend

And let him be.

The leaping up, you see,

The half he most forgot,

That was happiness.

–with an observation by Louise Glück

Words for Deaf Ears

The world is sacred.

It cannot be improved.

Treat it as an object,

and you'll lose it.

– 3,0000 year-old wisdom from the T'ao te Ching.

-

Consumed

Evening creased by enterprise

scarring sky and riddling the hills

née heaven and née earth

burning up the only world we know

our needs will become baser by and by.

-

Driving in Fog

Please click to enlarge.

Fog grows out of the valley

reducing the world to near distance

my fears and my confusions

approaching in wraithlike procession

reminding me how little

i really know for sure

and how long that lasts.

Easy now, i tell myself,

you're more than halfway home.

Stay calm. Keep going.

-

Manual Labor

Mantel

Hammered chains

nose ring forged of broken bolts

the blows cold in the melding

the hammer itself

up from cinders deep in the ground

worked by the next young man

fired by an idea of a life

ringing in his bones.

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