Poetry for Whom?

Bah.

Poets writing poems

about writing poetry.

For whom?

Other poets I guess,

but not for me,

not by me.

Instead

I write a poem

about poets

writing poems

about writing poetry,

and it's for you !

Then I go back

to navel-gazing,

or would if I had one,

but that's another poem

you're looking forward to,

I'm sure.

Pendulum

 

In our spot

the dog and me

at the top of the field

with the sun going down

behind Sugar Loaf

and the Long Moon

rising at our backs

seen through the Middlecreek woods

I can't tell

if it's peace of mind

or mild depression

likely both

slow swings

back and forth

it's not a long arc.

To Be Continued

 

Laved in moonlight

I ache to burn

in sunlight again.

One revolution

leads

to another.

Slow Fade

           

These still days

these still and empty days

as the earth whips 'round the sun

tilted toward the darkness

I'm trying to be still

still enough to feel my vanishing

like falling snow on open water

a fade to nothing

trying not to think

as mystics teach the only way

to fully know the now and failing

(the mind has a mind of its own)

conscious of my breathing

eight counts in and twelve counts out

to feel the slowing of my heart

emptying and fading

trying not to drown in memory

of when we were strong and in love

and everything was possible—

once we were magnificent—

thinking so is lovely

these still days

these still and empty days

tilted toward the darkness.

Awaiting Vaccination

New York Times photo illustration

 

i remember

i work to remember

touch

          your ungloved hand

          my unmasked face

an imprecise

joyful thing

the heat of it

          tenderness

          i work to remember

          

Christmas

          

If alone it is

then outside shall we be

across the hill and into the trees

under the sun's low arc

snow popping underfoot

winter in our lungs

an expanse of light and silence

as if a God were born

and now we have another Eternity.

—with a line by Fernando Pessoa, 1922

The Spring

 

The splatterware cup

          is still there

          under the stones

there at the back of the woods

there where the water springs from the hill

          cold and clear

in another light snow

          there where we left it

          cold and clear.

Solstice in the Dark

Solstice sunrise

Awake in the dark

          at the moment of solstice

stepping outside

          wrapped in a quilt

into the power of silence

Trumpeter swans

          calling high up

above the cloud cover

          in what I imagine to be

a clarity of stars

Back out at daybreak

          hoping for clearing by nightfall

to witness the Great Conjunction

          of Jupiter and Saturn

although the sunrise will do.

Going Deep

                   

Deep     on a winding path

to a place beyond knowing

dark white haze above the snow

in the quiet mystery

of morning before dawn

each day alone

another enlightenment

with the years closing in

content to dwell     at ease

with change and loss

inhabiting the constant

waiting     on the end

going deep into wind

we may not meet again.

—after Hsieh Ling-Yun (385 to 433) 

New Age Tidings

 

Hear it if you can

Easy to be down just now     these brief days

so I listen to the sea     because I can

I have the will     to call it up     to remember

the past so huge     the good the bad

I choose the good     and hear the sea

breaking breaking     on a flawless beach

at the edge of a continent     on the Earth

in the Solar System     near the center

of the Milky Way     in an endless universe

I have the will     I can

It's true     loss the human story

each of us     our tragedies

everything we love     we lose

once I thought     my pain unique

childhood terrors     a father's cruelty

the splattered wall     the bloody sheets

replaced too soon     my daughter's lightness

as I held her wasting frame     my awakening

in her room     to abject silence

I've come to know     no one escapes

There's no forgetting     and so

I make a choice     because I can

to hear the sea     I tell myself     buck up

who needs another chance     to keen

when I can hear the surf at will     and find

comfort in the waves     and in this fire     and wood to burn

and joy in strength     my legs    with woods to walk

comfort in the texts of friends     joy in family

eyes to see     a head to understand     a heart to know

I'm not alone    comfort and joy goddammit     comfort and joy.

Still Life XX XX Civilized

 

Half-eaten pear on plywood

digitalized     bowdlerized

sliderized     unrecognized

iconoclasts who thrive inside

racing droves in warehouses

tenderized    idolized     televised

and monetized     god bless america

but is it art?

Solstice Nearing

 

Let us call it Winter 

Let the dusk fall

And the moon rise

When I try to answer

I only sound farther away from myself

Let us speak of the things that are left

Wet Snow Woods

New world overnight

the dead and the dormant

left lovely

apotheosis of the fallen

warm flesh left to wonder

if they'll ever know such grace.

Something More

 

Rifle shots at dusk

on the last day of deer season

         echoing effervescent

up the wooded vale

melt dripping off the roof

          watch it darken through a silvered screen

this poem is for you

          but you'll never know

you     standing at the edge of a rising sea

          heavy deep and heaving

where you've been all your life

clinging to a moment

          when all things were possible

raising up the sunken feelings

          of the enormous past

you know what I'm saying

something salvaged deep inside

          memory and gunfire

          you in your unknowing

at the edge of a rising sea

          I'll believe in you

          if you'll believe in me.

East Before Sunrise

                                                 Earthsky.org

Far enough removed

to tell our truths

you with your silence

me with my poems

equally cryptic

East before sunrise

the young moon honed

to a cutting edge

out of bare trees

Venus dissolving.

Born of December

          

In the remoteness winter brings

the sound of the fire in the grate

soothed us like the sound of the sea

We stayed in the woods

separate together without speaking

in the comfort of each other 

'til the ground was brighter than the sky

and the trees stood on their shadows

long on the snow in the moonlight

And the morning twilight

and the evening twilight

made the whole day.

A Ghosting Snow

A ghosting snow

          fine and light

prolongs the dusk

turns all to outlines of itself

          along the woodland path

now more evident

in the hush of evening

          and its apparitions

here where deer have passed in twilight

and here where grouse have stepped

          among the flattened ferns

tracks across my own

that bind me closer to this land

          in unexpected ways

as do the tracks preserved

in the cellarway cement

          small tennis shoes

that break my heart.

Inclement

   

I don't think about you

as much as I used to

sky trapped in ice

released on the pond

as the afternoon warmed

I found the letter you sent

the one without words

just the outline of your hand

early December

snow and rain.

Watching the News: No Ideas But In Things

Growing up in the fifties

Neighbors leaned out of windows

To see a pretty girl pass by

While bombs fell out of the sky

And flames lit up the mirrors.

Outside, you notice it has started snowing.

Fevered forehead against the cold windowpane,

You watch the flakes come down one at a time

On the broken bird feeder and the old dog's grave.

Just the silence

Growing deeper

As the child leaps from the window

With her nightclothes on fire.

The more you reflect on things,

The more you feel sure of nothing,

Except being here,

Holding on for dear life

To a few eccentricities—

The wild apple tree at the road's edge,

The old blue pickup truck,

 

The one with the flat tire,

And the rusted, cast-iron stove

You meant to take to the dump.

—A cento created of full and partial stanzas from Charles Simic's poetry

collected in "That Little Something," Mariner Books, 2009.

Title includes a seminal line from William Carlos Williams' Paterson.

Ghost Ship

 

Ghost ship sails backwards

in time's longest nights

into the fears of childhood

unable to sleep

tires snapping gravel

at 3 a.m.

the father is back

no land in sight.

One Hill

 

       

Forty-six winters

On the same hill

So much is lost

But oh what we had

Only one hill

Many winds

With the Moon Near Full

Black woods, blue ground     the hills and their shadows

in the semigloss of night with the moon near full,

moonlight a wax of sadness     evenly spread

over the peopled township     over the fields and banyards

abandoned and quiet under dim stars     the few who must

standing in frost     its dark glitter     unaware of each other,

must because the past     the worst of it     awaits in dreams,

aging strangers     constellated grass     lone riders

drifitng with the planet     into the ruinous forever,

the semigloss of night with the moon near full,

black woods, blue ground     the hills and their shadows.

The Writer

     

 Ordinary sunset, ordinary quiet,

Same line of the planet against the same heaven.

Is it enough? In a heartbeat, you'd said.

Pity, then.

We thought the same stuff was funny,

We thought the same things were wrong,

If we could've been kind to each other,

It was all gravy, baby. 

He takes out his notebook, makes an entry.

NYC Love Poem

Mime on 9th Ave, New York.

      

 The last leaves snap from the trees

          and fall in the street, like the dead.

Torn newspaper spins in barred alcoves,

          lost of its purpose, like the dead.

Listen! The debris of the living speaks in the wind,

          so like the dead.

Horns in Hell's Kitchen, sidewalks enthronged,

          beings by thousands striding the concrete,

          somewhere to be.

Toughs break for cash at the feet of Columbus,

          mourners in Central Park still crying for Lennon,

          a silver man mimes for a living on Ninth,

          billiard balls barking in barlight on Tenth,

          men in jerseys and beards

          shouting at televisions over it all, idol-high,

          epic and glorious overtime endings,

So like her chosen, last city.

The Separation

 

Do you hear me

bang my head

against your wall?

Of course you do.

Why no answer?

Bang your head

against your side

and keep me company.

—lines by Charles Simic after Baudelaire

We Weren't the Oppens

Dreamscape photo

     

Of course we failed,

truthfulness being crucial,

self-criticism demanded,

with motives other than money,

packing words down,

with all our carnal history,

nocturnal artists living in a country

with a fetish for proving it can live without art,

when all we truly needed

was to sit in the sparrow-colored field

watching the last birds of dusk

pass over in silhouette,

and to sleep in our own bed,

or so we said.

—A cento with phrases from C.D. Wright's "Cooling Time."

Title refers to American poets Mary and George Oppen.

Tu Fu in Turkeyfoot

Sometimes I fear the end of light,

but as I watch the dusk from the top of the field

these mountain ridges range far into the heavens,

I float on the breath of the creeks

rising from the valleys,

and I sail away.

—Tu Fu, 712-770 C.E. An adaption

of  David Hinton's translation

of the revered Tang Dynasty

poet's penultimate poem.

Here Where We Are

Sitting until dark

at the edge of the woods,

things as they are,

the deepening sky,

clarity and emptiness,

the yearning of consciousness

under the forked-river of stars,

here where we are.

The force that flows

from wooded hill to valley ridge,

from horizon to horizon,

flows also through us,

joined as we are

to the ends of the Milky Way,

risen now like the handle of a basket

over our world and its mysteries,

here at the edge of heaven and earth,

here where we are.

November Poem: What the Wind Says

The way out

 

She

in the darkened hemlocks

in the month of leaving.

Her

in the oaks on the hill

sleeping naked.

The Air Over the Field

Field in a windstorm

Bursts of impermanent wind,

explosions of seed

over the hoary field,

airborne fleets of continuance

in a world of failed species,

so much humanity on one planet,

weapons on full automatic,

so much loneliness,

diagonal rain,

no answers,

clearing night,

meteors.

Last Cutting

   

Absence as company

mirror-deep

an empty boat.

Ancestral Rain

 Finches in the aster thatch

dripping sky bare dripping trees

the pond's expanding rings

candle flame and ticking stove

distances in mist

thought unbound from memory

pure perception rain

overcloud of all that's gone

deep in native ground

to rise beneath the birds

wild internal spring.

Cosmos

 

No one here

just the mind

the sea's flatline horizon

the steady wind off the continent

with its warm land smells

against the cold decay

the timeless collapse

the motion of arrival

and departure

and further out

the force of fire

the gravity of spheres

emptiness

the no one song.

"Ad Astra" and the Vote

 

I can't watch.

The polls begin to close and the counting starts.

Instead, I find Ad Astra, its final hour on HBO,

Where the results are in: We're all we've got.

The movie's futile search for life beyond Earth,

The aching realization of our solitude—

One hundred billion solar systems in our Milky Way,

Two trillion Milky Ways—our universe,

One hundred billion times two trillion and still

We're all we've got  is our best guess, infinity 

Is difficult to grasp, and yet, as far as we can tell,

We're all there is and all that's ever been.

We're all we've got.

I check the phone, VT, KY, WV, VA, SC, no surprises yet.

The moon is at the window, I step into the cold:

Huge yoke behind the briar arcs, and there atop

The silhouetted hill, colored points of light against the dark,

A solar-powered string draped in the dogwood

To mark where one girls' ashes flourish on the earth.

I check my phone: No battlegrounds, no swings.

Tomorrow, warmer, Indian summer ahead.

Four days hence, the vote is in:

Masked dancers in the streets.

I want to think we won't forget

We're all we've got.

—stills from 20th Century FOX's "Ad Astra," 2019

 

The Few and Far Between

 

Room between us

Far enough apart

not to hear the churn

of false assumption

Disinformation

diluted in sky

Few enough to value

human presence

Distance enough

to think the best

of each other

Room to love.

Blue Moon

 

Pale drift

over the ghosts

of the sloped fields

light of the mind

cold and planetary.

We want to believe

in tenderness

yearning for proof

how far

we have fallen.

— after Sylvia Plath

Most of the People Most of the Time

 

Facing the blinding urchin of the sun

in the high contrast of November,

the wind whistling in the wire,

the tall old oaks along the road

roaring for change, their sharp pennants

starched straight out toward the capitol,

holding my breath in a penetrating chill,

I am steadied by the familiarity of home,

by the form of the hill against the sky,

by the few, great trees as old as the nation itself,

clinging to faith in the most of us,

able to trace with pride a soldier line

through two world wars, the Civil War,

The War of 1812, and The Revolution,

loving the idea of America,

of what was won and what was lost,

and what I believe it is still and can be.

2: Standard Time

Inward our direction now,

two days before The Election,

wanting less of the world,

waiting to be counted,

turning back the clock

(may it signify nothing)

as the woods go bare,

firewood stacked and covered,

hailstones bouncing off the tarp

as the wind presses down

on the dying field,

the ghosts of plants

still filling our view

as well as when they were green,

and so it is with ourselves,

pleased as we must be,

those of us still standing,

with what remains.

3: Precarious Night (Parenthetic)

 

Margaret Miller photo

     

Up with Orion in moonlight (soon blue)

Stars in the grass at our feet (in the frost)

Glittering fields and dark woods (our world)

Faith in the heart of these hills (our people)

Three days before The Election (our future)

Nine generations born free (our illusion)

When most what we've needed is grace.

4: Place Wisdom

Built in 1862, dug out in 1918, rewired in 1974.

 

Fingercold four days before The Election,

blown mist quaking the dun oak leaves,

the hangers on. We, too, hanging on

in this old house where others have come and gone,

discontent with seasons in one place,

short-circuited in a shower of sparks,

leaving us in peace with handhewn beams

across stacked stones where all the truth we need

is when the breaker in the cellar is reset,

the power comes back on, and we can use

the electric heater and the coffeemaker

built to function well but not together

lest they blow a fuse.

5: All-Day Rain

     

So much comes and is gone,

anodized weather

bringing out the grain in things,

rain from the gulf

dripping from the eaves,

glazing the mountain road,

my tentative art turning back time—

all these years

I have never heard you sing—

rain in the woods

tapping out mysteries,

and on the misted field

a young rabbit hides in stillness,

five days before The Election.

6: Stepping into Evening

      

Away from the gurgle and whirl

of the digital with its breaking news

of a planet overrun by humans,

we step out the door and into the veils of evening,

into scattered leaves and gathering mists,

a landscape of silo domes and shed roofs,

limp fields and the cool damp silence

of a world made local by fog,

where the doe that prances in wet clover

seems more relevant to our lives

than all the intentions of nations,

her tail swaying like a metronome

as she melds into the trees,

and we follow, no one asking

for money, no one predicting

an apocalypse, night coming on

in a screenless peace, 

and really no one at all,

six days before The Election.

7: Early Voter

Who dreamt that we might live among ourselves,

a peaceful advance in assonance,

the mud road shining with ceased rain,

oak leaves hanging on

over snowfence stacked in rolls,

seven days to The Election ?

The way we are living,

timorous or bold,

will have been our life.

— last stanza is Seamus Heaney's first in "Elegy."

The Ache of Autumn

The ache of autumn

of what will be and used to be

when nodding bearded fields

when bright-crowned clouds in escalade

foretell winter as it was and

summer as it used to be

when you ran shining from the surf

phosphorescent as the sea

laughing with the gulls

in turning tide

the regularity

as woods go bare again

how many more

how many more

until the last

becomes the first

that slips from me?

Existential

 

A wool shirt feels right this morning,

Southward geese calling unseen in overcast,

Chickadees pluck seed from my palm

If I don't look them in the eye,

Finely made and weightless on my thumb,

Nine days before the election.

The Oatfield

      

The path my daughter opened

jeans-deep and running joyful down the ripened slope

childhood flying golden in her hair

is something else the combine and the fall

can never cut away.

Broken Window

    

I opened a window

at the edge of the world

and there you stood

on the driveway stones

with your bank account

in your makeup case

that far and no farther.

I closed a window

and turned you around

the broken pane

the briars desperate for light

scraping the mullion

in a confusion of wind

I threw myself out of life.

I tell myself 

it wasn't too late

decades ago.

Come back.

Is it far?

And So

Leaf-strewn, uphill.

 

Pursue a path,

The philosopher wrote,

However narrow or crooked,

In which you can walk

With love and reverence.

And so

We hear the hum

Of solitude.