Andy's Last Stand

Andy Warhol, The Last Supper (detail), 1986

Migrating vultures in flat-black benday

low turning in an Milanese sky,

the faithful and the skeptics

crowding the sidewalks

to stare at a hundred Last Suppers,

pink Jesus doubled in silk,

a reversal of the sacred and the secular

conflated with the presence of God.


Catholicism on the artist's own terms

towered over the empty pews.

Outside, an animal dead in the weeds

writhed with maggots of primary colors,

calling us down to a field of screened ink.

Our lives hang by a thread.

—image from Carnegie Magazine

Hikers of an Age

From a friend's hike at 11,000 feet

Forgive me

my shoes are heavy

my pack unbalanced

for not keeping up

let's pitch our tent here

surprised by what we've become

no rescue expected

and risk a small fire

the stars at this altitude
               
grow scandalous by night.

Reductio

The less there is to the day

          the better i like it


Backlit birds flying south

          they're not coming back

When i enter the woods

          the fields and the hills disappear


The fewer people to love

          the more dear


The best poems

          finish too soon.

Woodland East

  

Emerging from my own shadow

Seeking what

In woodland’s filtered morning?


Waiting for the next thing

Meaning redemption

When it's already here.

Flowers for Kelly

The old house is empty and quiet.

Flowers from the yard wilt in the vase

He keeps filled in a darkened corner,

Slow to replace them, and even then,

He lays them on the stones where the path ends,

Because death is not the end of beauty.

Nowhere Else

An ordinary jet-tracked sunset

much the same as yesterday

tomorrow may be too

contrails going gold and ash

west to a vanishing point

from where we are

in this rich and fertile mystery

close enough to touch

watching the sky feeling the currents

of evening on the backs of our necks

we two alive at the same time

when in the sprawling universe

this happens nowhere else we know of

and even more

we can tell each other what we feel

you can understand me

i can empathize with you

so let us honor language

and let us praise coincidence

among these gentle influences

perhaps even dare to touch.

Still Standing

Sunset ride over country macadam

the usual route through the farms

breathing the perfume of hay

with the wind in my mouth

and you on my mind

still strong enough

I can't remember

topping the hill to the old barn

filled with shadows and memories

after all these winding years.

Animal Life

  

They had happened into my dimension

The moment I arrived just there.


Red-breasted nuthatches

Fledged in the porch post mortice.


A placid eastern garter snake

Shed her skin in the well stones.


A woman carried tomato sauce

Down from the mountain in a  Mason jar.


One hour soul-eclipsed,

The next an Autumn light.

— connecting Hughes and Celine