Manual Labor

Mantel

Hammered chains

nose ring forged of broken bolts

the blows cold in the melding

the hammer itself

up from cinders deep in the ground

worked by the next young man

fired by an idea of a life

ringing in his bones.

-

Injured Pride

The day's organized events

drag their tails across the pond

slinking through the haze of twilight

the universe as it is

descends

floods these valleys and these hills

embracing me       my self-respect

a blaze

against the conformity of night.




-

Ohm

very well then

i embrace my irrelevance

the goal is to float on the current

no longer seeking to hold or to reject

can you feel the hum of dusk?

-

Unamerican

Today again

i neither

drove nor spent

instead i walked

the wooded hill

where midday sun

melts midnight snow

i watched it happen

and so in solitude

i reached my

own conclusions.

-

Crows Answer

Will it be worthwhile,

the walk i mean,

leaving the warm house

for the chilled silences?


Crows answer,

the hollow echoing

with ayes.

-

Shopper

Unnatural

cold wind in a dim vague howling

artificial sheen over the hollows and voids

we seek to fill through consumption

filled at last in our return to the woods

and the few light lives grateful for a handful of seed.

-

Omen

I rode to meet you: dreams

swarmed around me

and the moon on my right side

followed me, burning.


I rode back: everything changed.

My soul in love was sad

and the moon on my left side

trailed me without hope.


To such endless impressions

poets give themsleves absolutely,

making omen of mere event,

until the world reflects

the deepest needs of the soul.

–Louise Glück, after Pushkin.

Slow Eloquence

In waning light

a sharper view

a clearer path

in waxing moon.

-

Thanksgiving

Ancestors, 1920.

In the comfort of the living

we commune with the dead.

They are still here.

Just listen.

-

Getting On

Getting on

with the next thing in your life

puzzled by a sense of unease

perhaps because memory

has entered it like a spike

you sit for an hour in the woods

watching the sun in its low arc

moving behind the trees

reflections and voices passing through you

until you find again your place in the world.

-