Shadow Tracker

    

    

Can it be only me,

adding my tracks in the field

to those of the vole and the deer

and every other warm-blooded creature

that fled across the snow?

My shadow extends

as the sun swings 'round,

my form a streak up the hill

and off into the silvered blue,

a tangent to the earth—

I raise one arm

to see it move,

and for all the world

it looks like a greeting

to infinity.

Courting the Present

  

The man is blessed who every day

beholds the western sky at sunset

while revolutions vex the world.

—Henry David Thoreau, December 27, 1831.

Springwater

You who drank

from the same tin cup

cold and sweet

from under the stones

if only you could.

Moss and red efts

undisturbed

into another year.

What miracles

from thirst.

Through a Dark Lens

  

Let it be enough to know

                    you're not alone

                    the way you feel


The music you hear


Beneath every other music

                    across the white fields

                    above the bare-treed ridges


The colors you see


Beneath the red and green

                    you're not alone

                    the wounds inflicted

                 
Unintended unintended


Sleep and wake and sleep and wake and sleep

                    vanished beauty

                    broken hearts


Everything not nature falls away


What you are soon must recede

                    looking at the living

                    wishing for the dead


The illusion of rescue the rescue of illusion.

—after reading Frank Bidart's collected poems, 1965-2016.

Higher Latitudes

A sticking snow

bends the boughs

and slows us in the dusk

in reverence for the solitude

and privacy of winter

at the higher latitudes.

The Loneliness of Artists

Farm road, Middlecreek

A watercolor wash

in the misted dusk


The drench of loss

over the cold-pressed fields


Taking their inspiration

from charcoal and sepia days


Andrew Wyeths in their provinces

dream of red-gold braids.

And So Ourselves

We may infer

that every withered culm of grass

or sedge or weed still standing in the fields

answers some purpose by standing.

                                                       —Henry David Thoreau, Dec. 1, 1853

Abstract for the Dead

Each December since

beside the sea

                    its lift and sway

                    its infinite collapse


Until this latest longer dark

determined now to stay

                    steady wounded soul

                    a decade past


Frost in the ground at last

                    firmer footing

                    in winter rain


In these hills

it is the sky

                    that heaves and sighs.

Two Twilights

The hollow draws me in

tempts me down

into the depths of the year

to where night begins

feeling the pull of the solstice

the light so weak and brief

two twilights make the whole day.

Single Digits

  

Single digits in the dark

crystalize the night,

level bars of frozen mist

across the snowfield in first light,

pale blue against the woods,

as those of us who watched for dawn

add our tracks to yesterday's,

the heat of memory

lifting from our flesh,

old enough to know regret,

and though the past is never past,

we are still young enough to want

the next thing and the next.

Speechless

Speechless were

the day's best hours

when time eased by

unbroken

which is to say

were timeless

and joy was fueled

by even the weakest delusion.

Untitled

So much of the day is now evening

a fine and quiet snow has calmed the ground

chalking the sky and erasing the farther hills

as it sifted straight down

to pile up on my shoulders

where I stood peaceful and sad

paying attention to my breathing

eight counts in and twelve counts out

thinking of an ancient teaching

that says if you feel depressed

you need to think about death more often

eight counts in and twelve counts out

breathing in this one place.

Living December

No internet

No traffic


Only the wind

In the wire


Only the strength

Of your heart

Indian Summer

Warm enough

to plant your stick in the earth

and hang up your hat,

born-again midges rising and falling

between you and the advancing clouds

expanding overhead like heaven reheavened,

the planet with its wind and its wreckage

ever rolling back into its own shadow,

and all of its people

rising and falling with the light.