Dark Sky Sonnet

Pyrenees Mountains, Jean Francois Graffand

Veils of rain swelled the streams

to blurring, a cold front swept away

the clouds, and there rose the Milky Way,

Forked River of Heaven

lifting over the draining earth

like the handle of a basket.

Away from artificial light

night cast its spell, dark enough

that fireflies lit the beaded grass,

dark enough to count the sisters of the Pleiades,

dark enough to see the end and welcome it,

dark enough that you were beside me again,

breath-to-breath in candlelight.

Green eyes. Green eyes.

—ultimate line from a poem by Donald Hall.

Much

          

It doesn't take much to fill my life,

a sweep of sky, a ride at dusk,

these wooded hills,

a roof over these books,

a line that's true out of the blue

{in dark accidents, the mind's sufficient grace),

and two or three close friends

who know me best,

and still come 'round sometimes,

sometimes read me maybe,

sometimes even say so,

and sometimes is enough,

two or three's enough

and more than I expect,

writing as I must,

human and pathetic,

as desperate as all the rest

for like me, like me, like me...

—with a line by Delmore Schwartz

Buoyancy Afield

Buoyant after rain,

lifted on a cooler tide of silence

without a human sound,

life in its shorter acts

as lyrical as it is rumored to be,

corn in the fields shooting ears,

the evening sweet with silk,

a lighter burden of care

as swallows decorate the air.

After Again

In the woods that saves me

shirt on the knob

of the open door

all the old confusions

after seeing you again

I thought we had more time

after seeing you again

all the old confusions

of the open door

shirt on the knob

in the woods that saves me.

The Limits of Flight

Sergio Larrain photo, London, 1958,

as published in The Threepenny Review.

She startles the birds,

perhaps with her song,

unheard in the leaf shadows

in the garden of forms,

But the birds in their perches,

they hear it, being ancient,

they've heard it before,

the true voice of feeling,

that voice of the other

as she climbs to the rooftops

to test the limits of flight,

Launching the birds,

they've heard it before,

they are ancient

and know without knowing.

They, also, sing as they fly.

—and if you care to listen

Deeper

Carina Nebula, NASA, ESA, CSA, and STSci photo

Doves repeat

          the same song as yesterday

          they sing it low, low, low

Deer in slender perfection

          enter the cornfield

          flanks disappearing

          in rustle and gleam

Men in combustion

          loud in the moment

          chasing the next thing

          sudden and brief

Everything vanishes

          into the future

Wind rocks the chair

—Upon seeing the first images from the Webb Space Telescope revealing a previously invisible area of star birth. The "peaks" in the image above are themselves seven light-years high.

Rural Optimists, We Few

with room enough for optimism

 

Between two ancient mountain ridges

runs a third on which I live,

me and a few neighbors,

we like it that way, we few,

connected by a few well-graded roads

on which we may pass more tractors than cars

with a wave and some talk on the weather,

maybe a quick word about life and death

among the clans, a few in their eighth generation

on this spine of land between the creek and the river,

a few words enough for human connection,

letting each other know without saying

we're here and we'll help if we can,

here with our long vistas, flanked by blue ridges,

by wooded slopes and mist-filled valleys,

we few here in our quiet, dark nights,

with room enough for optimism,

here with our guarded kindness,

our shared concerns, 

knowing the value of rareness,

and thinking the best of each other,

we few, may it be so.

Childhood Night

     

Out the window we fled

barefoot across the wet grass

father drunk with a gun.

Years later

when the shot finally came

it offered no peace.

Dogs and Other Ghosts

on a western slope

 

Pup, Ben, Clyde, Bonnie, Murphy,

Henry, Thurber, Alaster, Blue,

and Holly, all under the apple tree.

How many good dogs can we know

in a lifetime ? How many close friends ?

How many kin?

How often our gazes met

while they lived, and still

eye-to-eye in the usual places.

Now another invisible watcher

ahead of me at a fork in the path,

awaiting a sign.

After fifty years on the same hillside,

spirits have gathered,

the dogs among them,

But I am the one awaiting a sign,

under the apple tree,

following them into the evening.

In This Old House

     

and one last thing

before you go dear one

it's been a joy

to share a little warmth with you

in this old house

between two fields of nothing

the one forever before

the one forever after

— with lines from Craig Arnold's "A Ubiquity of Sparrows" 

July Beyond the News

Sunset, Seven, One

 

Neighbors on back porches in July,

Praising the coolness of evening

After a good day's work,

The corn growing and the swallows feeding,

Apples showing in their leaves, rain at night,

The dog, recovered, sleeping at our feet,

No one we love just dead or dying in July,

The sky magnificent early, magnificent late,

An hour's quiet in the ceasura of July,

The slowing flow, the fading light,

Neon fireflies rising from wet grass

To constellate the trees —

Sweet land, of thee we sing.