Florida Chill

Shell hunters crouch over the tideline

salvaging the day with their feet in the gulf

moving beyond the claims of weather,

moving beyond whatever news there is,

and when the dark begins to deepen

under the pier and rises in the folds

of their own jackets, they say nothing,

knowing they are all from far away

and will be leaving soon,

bending closer to the common gems of living.

Tell Yourself

  

Tonight as it gets cold

tell yourself what you know

which is nothing

but the tunes your bones play

as you keep going.  And you will be able

for once to lie down under the small fire

of winter stars.


And if it happens that you cannot

go on or turn back

and you find yourself

where you will be at the end,

tell yourself

in that final flowing of cold through your limbs

that you love who you are.

—excerpt from "Lines for Winter" by Mark Strand.

On Being Numerous

Sarasota County, Florida

The world will be lovely without us

if we don't take it with us when we go.

—Title from a poem by George Oppen. Click here to read it.

Salt

The feet of Lot's daughters, detail of "The Flight of Lot
and His Family from Sodom," Peter Paul Rubens, ca. 1613-15.

  

Don't look back

fleeing the burning city

in our leap off the ridge

into the dark void of obsession.



For a moment

our ignition lit the valley.

For a moment we were stars.

No one said never again.

Protective

An unseen sea

awash on a fogbound coast,

A notion of blankness

bears us away,

Lying apart.

Visions for a Northern Night

There's not much you can do,

you shiver in the dark,

snow sifts across the drive.

Love you then the night,

its power to dissolve,

another dream of gulls

across the blinding sun,

another glide toward rain,

the sound of it in trees,

moving in vague pillars

over the fields rising.

Dusk to Dawn

  

Praise for the morning whose sun is upon me,

Praise for the evening whose son i am,

Child of the jet age, father of miles

And the rising generations of air.

—with lines by Mark Strand.

Flight 183 to Fort Myers

  

Ovals of sunlight float in the fusilage

following the coast in descent

ghosts at my side.


Yes. Yes. We will land without incident

and take off again, this time

inventing an ending that comes out right.

Companions Unseen

  

Following the fox's tracks for miles

as earlier the fox had followed mine

from farm to farm across the old boundaries,

crossing the runs and the woodlots,

checking the warrens and the stone rows,

walking where we walked yesterday,

connected by sharing the same mountain,

by being alive at the same time,

unseen, an affair among wraiths

with a reverence for difference,

yet so much in common.

Frostbite

Expand with a click.

  

In the purity of zero i go back i always go back

when the air cracks crystal to the force of you

when i stood in the open and the wind burned my skin

the waning crescent just clearing the woods

the day begins with what i wanted to find

and there you were fiery and gorgeous

shattering orbs and the rest mad for words

fierce with desire an explosion of mind

in the drifts that cover the frozen creek

writing it failing both of us caught

in a fusillade we couldn't see coming

of breaking limbs and an ice cannonade.

Snownest

Nest over spring, Upper Turkeyfoot. Please click.

Why should we not live

with the intensity of infants?

Is not the world, are not the heavens

as unfathomed as ever?

Have we exhausted

any joy, any sentiment?

—Thoreau, Feb. 15, 1851.

Crucifix

Mina Loy

It was more than that

because it is,

The chances of my flesh

are not our destiny,

Fused in the raw caverns

of the Increate,

Still shines.

"Poetry is prose bewitched."  –Mina Loy.

"What crucifixions are in love?" –Herrick.

Personal

Hoarfrost on pond ice. Expand with a clock.

  

To see the self as it is, a phenomenon in space,

whatever i think i am, an object, a thing,

one more thing that throws a shadow,

and has extension, dimension, limitation,

not a shadow of something else, but is itself only...

You understand what i mean, you others,

or understand at least how shocking the obvious can be

if you're not ready for it.

—Extraction from a poem by Vijay Seshadri

Centering

Small, normal days

can be sweetest,

days when

you need little,

and you have it.

Deep breath.

Snowfall Overnight

Please expand with a click.

On the mountain in the morning it is white again

and we rise in grateful solitude and peace.

We remember what it feels like to be loved again

when the snow creates such beauty from the least.

Lichen Days

Please click for detail.

In the stark softening of winter

in the fog and the weakening dormancy

the eye awakens to color

water lifting and falling with the light

our lichen days a slow arousal

equal to the world we are.

Belief in the Inevitable

Expand into spring by clicking.

   

Breathe in the fog with your boots in wet snow and be patient,

Seventy marks on the wall 'til the violets bloom.

You're still in the mist and the snow when you open your eyes,

But see how the seeds of the field have been scattered by wind,

Stay close to the surface and trust in the power of spring.

The Current in February

   

More than halfway through,

entering the Gulf Stream of winter

pulled along in the current toward spring,

easier to assess the woodpile now,

relishing the work of muscle and bone

when the wind calms in a stronger sun,

hearing the birds who sing it too,

more than halfway through.

Snowshoeing in the UT

   

No lifts, no lines, no fees,

no one to impress, no skis,

no parking lot, no mortgaged coat,

just open fields and ragged wool,

just hawthorne poles and room to roam,

unbroken drifts, unbroken thought, just home.

Alternating Realities

The road was opened in the dark

by the township's big machine

thunder on the frozen ground

ready for the next squall

 i moved in my bed

reentering the dream.

Company

 

Our star gilds us ridge to ridge,

our valley fills with night,

and back we roll into shadow.

You must forgive me

when i reach for your hand.

Rain on Snow

   

Those lives we've lived,

where are they now?

Those passions shared,

tell me they were real.

It's February here,

the weather's turned again,

fog grovels on the fields.

I won't forget,

You don't know what I feel.

Unknowing

    

The last of January

the unbroken drifts in the fields against the trees

the long shadows where do they end

when the horizon bisects the sun

do they cling for awhile to the curve of the earth

do fly straight off into space

is that what space is endless shadow

shade overlapping shade crosshatched and interwoven

from the shadows of the planets of a trillion suns oh

our imaginations are limited and our minds are weak

it's all we can do to think are there even other trees

let alone of the answers to the you and the me?