Outbuildings

Stones laid dry below the frost

tree trunks adzed to beams

chestnut horizontals

Braced with oak on upright poplar

plumbed and pinned and standing firm

until the people disappear.

The roof gives up to rain

and then it won't be long

the earth reaching up to pull it down

Outbuildings with their secrets

shadows move behind old glass

don't tell me no one's watching.

Mantra for First Light

morning cobwebs

glow with dew

a thousand silver hammocks

hang in the wreckage of the past

the sun stands up behind bare oaks

dissolves the sky to cloud and blue

the ground grows green

under nesting sparrows

and again

spring on a mountain

subtle change

is the most i can handle

small openings on the ridges

slow tintings in the hollow

the day a moment longer

orion a degree higher

your voice a little fainter

in the wind

the house was small

 but in the woods

he felt no fear

maypoles holding rain

and catching sun

before the trees

could cover him

for good

another

this hillside patch of ground

my solid place to stand

in a fluid universe and time

living long enough to know

the trick is standing still


so many minds of then and now

countless spinning worlds

that never really change

the milky way goes down the sky

the moon stands in the open door


the ancient tortured consciousness

that knows of love and knows of death

to stand in a storm of memory

to listen for the peace

as hylas fill the air


to say the most that i can say

i am a man et cetera

Agee on the Porch

All the length of the body,

all of its parts and functions

were participating, realized,

inseparable from the mind, and

everything that the mind touched

was actuality, all, everything,

turned immediately into truth,

which in its very nature is joy,

which must be the end of art,

and of all anyhow human existence.

—slightly-manipulated words of James Agee, from  "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men." 

After the Equinox, After the Moon*

Speak to me of suffering,

Tone without hue,

Line beyond form,

Speak to me of promise.

* —Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox.

Getting the Picture

The entertianment world must thrive

without me for a while — my television's blank.

Oh, people talk, and music plays — which is how

i know it's not the news — so often

basso with the minor chords — walkup for

Old Scratch — a symphony of cataclysm,

explosions, shouts and wails — sometimes

even conversation with string orchestra,

interspersed with the acronyms

of peristaltic afflictions, before

the gunfire resumes — but still no picture.


That's fine. I'll eat my eggs and ramps

on the porch in front of the field and woods and sky,

watching the leaves open to the melodies

of returning birds, singing of the tropics,

and all of us in tune again with the close-at-hand,

this sweet old earth, and how she rolls.

Pillar of the Sun : Emigration Song

(Alec Jones photo)

  

For those we never knew, from those who left

to those who stayed behind, a shared emptiness,

both sides of a wild and hungering sea,

bone-strewn shore to shore,


For those still gathered in the pubs, circle

your chairs and give us a song from the old days,

voices tuned to the wind, the lashing rain,

and to farewell— for the loss of generations

there is no metaphor.


All we ever wanted was each other,

we ache to have each other still— absence

is a hollow in the chest— and yet for all of that,

one's sunset is another's dawn— we children

of the gone and stayed behold the pillar

of the sun and dream we will.

Wondrous Occurrences

then the moon

round in the budding woods

and moonlight

where they had walked

then the echoes of owls

Untitled in April

Surely this is the end of it

Aslant in the yard light

One last white morning

Off we go

Aching to make the most of it

At ease in this last snow

Hoping even still

To reinvent our lives.

Showcase

  

Nobody home for twenty years,

the house sits empty and dissolving

rain by rain, and yet still holds its history,

so long as the last of the family line,

who died without descendants,

are remembered on the surrounding farms

where you'll hear the same phrase said,

"It used to be a showcase," reminding us,

of a certain age, of own progressing dereliction,

though, on a good day, not without a smile,

for while our siding may be crumbling

and our curtains hang in tatters, oh,

weren't we once a showcase, too,

and, mercy, weren't we something?

Fake Spring

Frost on the garlic 'till the sun stood up

in the woods and everything warmed

like a fine-tuned machine as no April before

with the daffs in agreement and the violets

eager to make themselves known by the pond

where black spots in eggs shot thier tails

in the jiggling gel under great victories

of white swans trumpeting to the Arctic

ripe for the plucking as a groundhog emerged

to break her fast when neighbors going to church

sent her to heaven and everything was very

very very in the sweet by and by.

Last Run in March

An empty road

wet with cloud

full of moment

desolation's privilege.