The Work We Do

Horse collar and horseshoes

Hand-stitched hide and hammered iron

unearthed from the old fields

made hallowed ground by muscle and bone,

hung beneath the woodshed roof as a reminder

of what we were, and what we are,

not so far removed.

Abandoned Beach

South Brohard Beach, Sarasoa County, Florida.

 Tornado watch lifted, the continental arch of clouds that linked

South Brohard Beach with Upper Turkeyfoot moved out to sea,

I have the evening to myself, rather, i share it with the birds,

And with the wind, and with the light,

And with those i think about who think of me,

Not unlike an evening walking the tree line in my own field,

Except for the gulf, the writhing, shining, seductive, fecund gulf,

And that makes all the difference.

Florida Allegory

Gulf coast moonrise,

Surf at my back in endless collapse,

A mist moves in off the dark water

To fill the empty beach.


Easy to forget where i crossed the dunes,

Savoring the slight fear i might be lost,

A recurring sensation,

As the figures around me dissolve in the fog.

American Pasttimes

Vendor outside McKechnie Field, Bradenton, Florida.

They go together

In the good old U.S.A.

Chain Link

Pirate City, Bradenton, Florida.

Caged at the hub

of four fields,

watching the caged

watch the caged,

you find yourself

seeking an opening

big enough for a lens

to penetrate or a ball

to pass through,

and there is none.

Command

Jared Hughes cools down.

Solitary and brooding, the reliever rests

As if between innings, intently focused,

Rotation of mind as difficult to master

As the hard sinker plunging toward clay.

Spring Training

Pirate City, Bradenton, Florida.

We played, most of us,

when we were boys in open fields.

We coached, some of us,

when our sons and daughters

played in open fields.

Now we watch, all of us,

the play of the quick and the brilliant,

fenced off from speed and youth,

fenced off from open fields.

Baggage

Shells under your feet

after just two hours in the air,

the snowy woods your carry-on.

Under the Willow in Winter

Veil of certain summer

hangs around me like a hope,

the willow always first to green,

dormant but full of promise,

legs of snow walking the hill,

wind saying there will be time,

there will be time enough.

Focus

A feather stopped me on the path,

The feather of a dove bejeweled with melted snow.

For a moment i considered nothing else,

And i was happy then.

Easy, Quiet Snow

Touched match to

paper under twigs,

propped my boots

upon the grate,

and read.


When next i

looked, the world

was deeper for

new snow, and i,

i am of the world.

Takers

Barns going,

built of virgin timber

from the forests that preceded them.

Unsettling to think

the land is next.


Seen from space,

the sign of human habitation

is barren ground.


Cherish what remains.

Runoff

Tell them the sun held you fast, that the sound of melt

Mesmerized you and you couldn't resist, tell them the water

Moved with purpose, casting it spell, tell them

The muscular shine of its flex held you fast, tell them

It lead you into the woods. Tell them you never came back.

Please enlarge by clicking

Reading Mary Ruefle

There's a glove in the street for a week.

Never moved. Ringed now with salt.

Surely this has tragic implications.

This is a poem, afterall. Help me with this.

Hands are unbearably beautiful.

That's a good start.

They hold things. They let things go.

That's rich. I can take it from there.

For a week there's a glove in the street.

–Mary Ruefle helped.

Sensual World

The Saint Vincent Gallery 

This life, how we see it,

sliding over its surfaces,

tracing its lines with our fingertips,

tasting its angles and planes,

falling through its negative spaces,

the light spiraling into the dark,

none of us knows it the same,

except when we tumble into each other

and see it as one,

which lasts but a moment.

No DIfference Except

Credit to Oregon Inlet Idiots

Facebook sunrise from Kitty Hawk today,

startling to see from our heated dens in the Great White North

where it takes more conviction to say, as they do on The Banks,

"No diffence between summer and winter, except

in winter, the nice days are farther apart."

Bread and Apples

So busy inside i am surprised when i look up

to see red in the west, when last i looked

it was red in the east.

Much accomplished in between – the bottom line, you know,

all of it to be rendered meaningless in time, and soon.

Yes, we were meant to work, but if i could,

I'd lift the roof

and watch the daily transit of the fabulous,

the golden apples of the sun, the silver apples of the moon.

–last line by Yeats.

Cabin Fever

Clink (cq) to enlarge

Walled in, encircled,

trapped, hung,

lethal and fragile,

deprived of sun.

Once we were flame,

hectic and flexible,

and there we found ourselves

more truly and more strange.

–with a line adapted from Wallace Stephens.

Phosphor

Nothing can be known

I think i know the night walking the treeline

With my breath ahead of me walking into wraiths

Wraiths walking me into the night

The snowy night in last light walking

The treeline luminous with the ghosts of summer

The luminous ghosts i think i know

I think they know me the recent dead

The luminous dead we think we know but

Nothing can be known.

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To enlarge, please click.

Closed for lunch when i arrive,

To reopen in one hour,

Not a problem, i'll make do,

Maybe lean against the bridge

And watch the ice-filled river flow

Until i'm sailing backwards,

Thinking how it used to be

In that easy country way of longing.

–The U.S. Postal Service has announced the partial closing of the Markleton Post Office.

Meaning and Expectation

My fault then if the unswept steps

you find icy and too steep since

i built them with a roofing square

 and saw i filed and set myself

(i always try to drive a spike

with an economy of blows)

so maybe they won't take you up

but i do expect you to try.