The Horn Again As It Once Was

Pinkerton Horn as it was before CSX excavation.

Whatever was left was ours for a while,

But sooner or later the hills will take it back,

And maybe the moon will send the seas there

And where we once lived will be a river coiling around

Honoring the sky through its reflection––

Blue in the summer. White when the snow falls.

–Lines from Louise Glück's "Sunrise."

The Horn as it looks today.

Slope and Loom

Parson's Beach, Maine

I have found the place i wasn't meant to find,

Low tide on the stoney coast far out

Where the sky and the sea are all one shadow––

My past stretches from here to there and back:

Shifting surface of my own kind,

Heaving slope and loom of ghosts.

In this jumbled ruin of nature i wait

For the crest of that old wave to reclaim me.

–Mashup from the works of Robin Robertson

Time Travel

Kennebunk Beach, Maine. Please enlarge.

I tried to read,

dark poems by a troubled Scot,

but slept instead.

I awoke to find myself in Maine

at the end of the day, at the end of the earth,

my parents had died, my marriage had ended,

my children had grown and floated on their own seas,

skin had loosened on my limbs,

my heart pounding like there's no tomorrow.

–with impetus and three adapted lines by Robin Robertson.

Fables of Childhood

The boy loves the attic, hot and dark,

his father's loose toys bagged and boxed,

covered with newsprint and sprinkled with flies,

intrigued by a vanished childhood

he can't quite connect to his dad

except through the telling,

fables, it seems, for us all,

as only the moment feels real.

Summer With Grandson

Doves count to three in the hemlocks

With the ballgame on the radio

We move closer to the fire as the stars uncover.

Bless this fresh-cut yard and this old house,

Its creaking posts and beams hewn from this hill,

Bless this peaceful pooling night,

Bless beside me this young man 

Who sometimes thinks like me

Shivering in the chill light,

Both of us believing in happiness

In this magical kingdom of home

Where we stay to be human and grateful.

–inspired by a Philip Schultz poem.

Afield, Undisturbed

Praise these open fields

where the wind sings

of inner and outer things,

where you can drift

in ever-widening circles,

reckless in surrender

to the racing sky.

Vespers

And when the rain eased

hummingbirds appeared

vibrating in the saturated air

like evening prayers.

Third Shift

Last night i held a pen

Opened my chest

And let the river out.


Turbulence until first light,

The welcome weak blue blur.

Blur

Click to enlarge.

Closer now to the great blooming

but blurred having seen this much

of the rising up and the falling down

for the moment to go soft at the edges

focusing instead on the middle distance

close enough to think we know

far enough away to will it fine.

The Principle of Sufficient Reason

Sunrise through a patched screen,

Each morning like a wave

That washes over me,

Followed by the undertow

That draws me back.


Suppose there is no right reading.

Workday

Pittsburgh Zoo

Today we would rather

be the bear performing

for tossed fish, and

aren't we that anyhow,

but with neither pool

nor squeals of delight?

Flinch

Praise for the present,

the jolt of the now,

the old instinct,

the adrenal surge

of the moment,

in spite of a world

that puts what we love

in the past.

– sentiment and three lines by Bruce Bond.

Summer Twilight

Just before fireflies

rise from the grass,

radiant cooling.


Just before memory

props up its feet,

the old aching.

Heat

Earth smell rises

in pillars of shadow.


Standing in a pool of clouds

as they catch fire in the distance.


The system worked

but that's not the same as justice.


We could use a Magus

to worship the great disorder.

–In the heatwave following the Zimmerman trial, with three lines from Bruce Bond.

Who

In the ordinary startle of magnificent July,

no wondering who you are,

barefoot at the pond's edge,

like you did last night

when you heard the things you said,

inaccuracies unintended in the din.


Here with muck between your toes,

the water snake taking cover under lily pads,

you are you

and all this, too.

Wobble

Click to immerse.

just beyond the surface

a parallel universe

you are not the watcher

The Underside

Click to enlarge.

Cool and quiet

under the canopy

that lifts to let

the wind in,

more truth here

on the underside

than on the faces

shining in the sun.

Another Storm

Happiness, i used to think,

Was a necessary illusion.

Now i think it's just

Precious moments of relief.

–Lines from Philip Schultz's "Greed."

As in the Ancient Greek

Yes, it is possible

to feel nostalgia

for what you've

never known,

to ache for a day

with a lover you've

never met in a land

you've never seen.

Nostos as homecoming.

Algos as pain.

Landays: Poems in a War Zone

Henna-handed poets of Afghanistan

risk their lives to sing two lines.

The ancient forms are slow to die

wherever souls have voice.

–Images from facebook.com/pashtolanday

For more on landays, go to POETRY.

Familiar Territory

Salisbury Viaduct, Great Allegheny Passage

Riding

into rain

high up

gasping

for balance

pushing on

we must

keep moving

or we fall.

Visit

She arrived at first light

And had come a long way


Looking tired from her trip

As she lay in my arms


Resting her head on my chest

Here in this old easy chair


How i have missed her embrace

My girl.

Distant Thunder

Afternoon into evening

the rain wagons roll

over planked bridges

in a billowed southern sky,

power at a distance as pleasing

as a romanticized past.

–on the 150th anniversary of the end of the Battle of Gettysburg.

Inheritance

Lamb chops and Doris Kearns Goodwin, speaking
at a private reception in Gettysburg, June 30, 2013.

Food for the stomach

Or food for the soul?

The playwright

Asked 60 years ago.

Dig in.

Eve of the 150th

June 30, 2013

We thousands

in Gettysburg

up cemetery hill

shielding candles

from the hot wind

shuffle sweating

to reconsecrate

 this ground

and still

as Lincoln knew

cannot.