 |
Hokyoung Kim, The New York Times |
I do not blame you
yet i do
I should not have
yet I did
I have seen the world
without you in it
and it's not what you thought
From the top of the hill
my shadow stretches
into the thaw-blackened trees
I do not accept your absence
yet I do
I should never
yet I will
Clouds arranging themselves at sunset,
A distant, barking dog,
A few ever-present crows.
Our thoughts are with those among the dead
Into whose sphere we are rising,
And who are rising now into our own.
A chill slips off the hill
And pours around us,
Shades of night take possession of the east.
But we know how the minutes
fly off into the bare trees
and vanish,
And we know how the weeks
walk off
into the valley shadows.
I reach for your hand.
It is not something
one is supposed to say.
—a cento from W.S. Merwin's Solstice
 |
| ...from Neglected Murderesses, by Edward Gorey |
I sent you a card
again this year.
Call it my little
enigmatic love song,
a single note
in a minor chord.
— "Natasha Batti-Loupstein pulverized a paste necklace and sprinkled it over a tray of canapes. Villa Libellule, Nice, 1923."
 |
| Hungry for magic (Getty Images) |
Walk in the skins of the dead
in their feathers and furs
with wolves in the lead
into the black and brown forest,
we masters of language and fire,
upright and savage
with instincts of eons,
hungry for magic,
violent over-sized brains
programmed to do the wrong thing,
thinking ourselves
in a new age,
the sun low and brief,
the whole day a twilight.
 |
| at the end of a ride |
What sustains us
is that it could
be otherwise.
—after reading Eugenio Montale's "Brooding"
 |
| As a cold front passes |
 |
| Ruffed grouse love wild grapes |
Just you in thrift shop wool among the trees
alone with your own thoughts
a few crows croaking on the hill
silver up the sides of trunks
long shadows rooted at their feet
pointing toward town
A busy place your mind
mostly with the past
mostly with the why did she
a lot of with the and why not
a grouse explodes from cover
buffeting your space
Plenty of room in the woods
the crowns empty and sighing
the tarnished sky spread out
no stopping thought
the mind has a mind of its own
How strange to meet yourself
in the solitude of weather
stranger in a strange land
finding comfort among trees
in a world that's not what you expected.
 |
| Slow-shuttered sunset |
Shining end of day
Gilded unbroken horizons
Rolling back
Into the shadow of the earth
No human sound
Immortal just now
