Stumbleground

She led the way as he wished

into the wooded hollow with

the cold wind saying no above them

disapproval in the barren crowns

they stumbled over stones

hidden in the leaf mat ferns

flattened by the winter just past

on ground never tilled they ran

down the slope branches vines

pulling at their clothes they didn't care

if they fell they had each other then

they did and they didn't she was young with

everything to live for she did as he wished

they did and they didn't and she did.

Twigs in a Jar

After the bloom, the leaf

springs from the twig in the jar,

nothing but water to go on,

so common on earth,

so rare in beyond,

Climbing the towers

we call trees into the sunrise,

our synapses firing in starlight,

lighting in a jar

we call our lives.

Revert to Original

The sky over Sugar Loaf, best enlarged.

the sky as it is

unretouched

the earth rolling back

into its shadow

us calm enough

breathing the wind

all sliders at nil

to welcome the night

Found Notebook

Another tough one,

last words come to light.

Let my treasure be for now

this sunset in the weeds,

and i shall try to be

still in stillness,

practicing infinity.

Beech behind Oak

When morning is smoke

You'll know where to look,

Peace to the beech and the oak,

An echo in trees.

Strata

  

The years in my head,

layers of being,

the strata of a life,

many years, many shames,

the Chinese expression,

i would add many joys,

like leaves on the ground

lying as they fell,

each in its succession

returning to earth,

a pleasant enough consolation.

On the Same Path as Yesterday

On the same path i walked yesterday,

over the field  and into the woods,

the dog happily leading the way,

a dusting of snow makes it all new,

no need to travel to find the exotic

when a single cardinal

brightens the whole hill,

such joys of existence

under my feet and within my reach,

standing still on a few poor acres

of undisturbed earth.

The Heart Overflows

Off the Mainland

Even a man content in his time

catches a glimpse

a movement in shadow

a sound over water

that fill him with longing

hints of a life

too vaguely remembered

to ever let on

as if loving and loss

were only a current condition.

—Fueled by a Sanskrit poem from the Fifth Century.

By the Rising of the Moon*

Rising of an Eclipsed Moon

Clinging to what light there is

in this conflicted country

as the sky rejoins the earth,

takes its rightful place

among the hills and barns,

we feign accept we do not live

by justice but by grace.

* – Irish rebel song. Click here.

Antidote

The only sound is softened wind,

a music missing from the fields.

Yet music is unending,

only hearing intermittent.


I build a fire, prop up my feet

in the poverty of a simple life.

I read Thoreau and take to heart

an epic country day of fewer incidents.

Morning Is a New Land

The night was long and sectioned,

the past piled up against the glass,

rattled the kitchen door,

shook the hasp and keeper 

until the rain began, and just like that

a new light was leaking through the blinds.

Confident into morning we moved,

into the drip and the fog on the snow,

into the softening woods where we

forgot for a while what was waiting,

no one to ask why the world goes on

accepting more and more rain.

—with lines by Phillip Levine (1928-2015)

Pathétique

At 5:51 I gave up

Trying to sleep,

 Sonata No. 8 in C minor

Bluetoothing on Pandora,

Philip Levine dead

On the Bean fleece

And Detroit still Detroit,

Failing to dream it to Prague

The day after Groundhog Day

With the snow still blue

In moonlit Western Pennsylvania

And no one expected.

Degrees

Thirty three and yet

the snow insists

on being snow

leans in from the south

as fine as talc

erasing the woods

across the ravaged field

snow upon snow

just as my thoughts

insist on being

what they are

which is to say

obsessed

with should-have-knowns

unrelenting and aslant

distances dimished

east and west

deepening layers

day upon day

the snow at seventy two.