Firetower on Mount Davis

We could see for miles at first,

looking out over the mist-filled valleys

and the darkening ridges of the Laurels,

into the scarves of sunset.

We had climbed into the wind,

unsteady when we looked down,

gripping the cold handrail

as if our lives depended on it,

Each steel step like a gong

that set the whole tower buzzing

and our hearts racing, high                   

on the highest mountain in Pennsylvania.

We thought we had time at first,

making our promises, close to the edge,

leaning into each other for warmth

as if our lives depended on it.

But night came fast,

and we barely made it down.

Awakening to Fresh Snow

 

As if existence

Had no expiration date,

The whole thing

Once again.

Seasonal Affective

Away from the sun

in a casing of air

thin and fragile

plunging headlong

into everything

we don't understand

take my hand

The Return of Comfort

 

Pain ceased

and the world was new again,

the majesty of old trees

with fresh snow on their limbs,

the mailbox with its flag up

under the weighted pine,

the smell of the pond

still open where the spring runs in,

the cardinal in the laurel,

the text from your child,

the warmth of your dog,

the concern of your neighbors,

all the wonderful small things

you've known for fifty years

in one place,

the familiarity of home,

the work of your own hands,

even as it's falling in around you.

Stark Winter

Each day in the winter

the path to the logshed

each day in the winter

a wheelbarrow load

each day in the winter

up and back up and back

each day in the winter

where are you now?

Cold and Gentle

The day is a poem

cold and gentle

the evening a little longer now

going easy among long shadows

no one in sight long enough

that the sunset seems our own

a forecast if we're lucky

of our own vanishing

going easy.

Poets' Blues

Joe Bonamassa at Shepherd's Bush Empire, London, 2013

 

Click here and listen to "Stop!" as you read

Bonamassa plays,

trancelike, dripping sweat,

buoyed on notes

from the deep heart's core,

a riff that curls the lip.

If words alone

could weigh as much

we might have cured our blues,

leaned back, and let it rip.

—Image a screensave from Joe Bonamassa Official - "Stop!"- Tour De Force: Shepherd's Bush Empire, linked above

On Quiet

No human sound

Quiet surprises me

each time I go over the hill

and into the trees,

searching for clarity,

Welcomed by quiet,

in January's weak light,

long shadows, racing sky,

no human sound.

I believe in quiet,

I seek it out, surprised

each time by its power

to calm, if not to heal.

On the cabin porch,

with my breath before me,

I, too, go quiet.

It feels like an answer.

Expanse

 

In order to be filled,

the prophet said,

you must first be emptied.

Standing in the shadow of the earth,

in an expanse of stillness,

an exchange.

At the Rising of the Moon

Full moon over Upper Turkeyfoot

Not much is moving

but the road under us

and the blur of our wheels,

the sun down and the moon rising

through the Belt of Venus

in the banded east.

We stop on a hilltop

in a windless silence.

Not much is moving

but the blood in our veins,

the rush of ourselves,

the universal hum.

In the year's first week,

it is that quiet.

But, oh, the torrent internal.

Comfort Then

Poppy, 2015

 

Comfort then

when it is needed

after you know

Words to lift you

raindrops

on your shoulders

in the dark

someone

to read them to you

The day on your cheek

the shapes in your mind

the beauty of sound

Thaw Meanwhile

Boots on soft ground again

the turn we've missed

preoccupied on earth again

the rhyme unnoticed.