The Volunteers

burdock, dames rocket, comfrey, potato

apotheosis of a compost heap

grows lovely with the volunteers

lush in each other's company

embracing fate and happenstance

nourished by spring and proximity

inventing themselves anew each day

more alive for natural entwinement

than the structured garden's civilized rows

which are someone else's striving

Cool Morning With Flute

everything's connected

music filled the woods where laurel bloomed

not the music of the spheres 'though there was that too

but music human-made plaintive soothing alive

a low harmonious breath an homage nature never forgets

i stood in chest-high ferns near a silver stream

i unfocused my eyes and was still

sunlight slid refracted on gossamer under the trees

the shadows of birds sailed against green

a woman beside me said one

and the word hung in the air as sweet mist

—with a line by Louisa Mae Alcott

A Summoning

deep enough in the woods

ground charmed

by what came to me there

radiant and sensory

cloaked in rain

auras ashimmer

vital as a spring at its source

reason to be to have been to go on

never so alive as awake in a dream

Stopping on a Dirt Road at Sunset

please click to expand

i stop the truck in the fleabane and turn off the engine

 i stand in the easing rain and look across the valley

mist already rising from the streams feeding the creek

this ridge and the next ridge world enough

this moment and the next moment time enough

in love with the force of my heart beating where it lies

After Rain

the air in the woods after rain

is the color of the old hours

with faith in each other

they come to us

our essential things

the day walks in circles around us

we feel the rain again

—with lines by Lorca

Peonies

truth lies far below the perfumed surface

if you keep your revelations to yourself

they are absolutely yours the master said

you is barely plural

If We Can

here's the trick

let the other

summers go

I Am Grateful

Days become dreams one pulled from out of the other

in this indelible spring i have seen what holds up the sky

i have learned how to close my eyes in sunlight

and to open them in shade

and to wait

 i have become a better man

searching once more for the light that sings inside of me

and finding it

an ocean leaps against the walls of my secret being

this passing season this season always passing

we are part of it forever

this poem is my thanks

—with images by Neruda (the subject is worthy) borrowed with a bow

This Time

weightier each day

Too often in springs past

the misdirections of living

have stolen me away

from what i loved most

not this time i promised

this time i will be there

to catch the may apple

as it falls a promise

i shall keep as exemplar

of promises to come

As the Sun Climbs Higher

Drifting now into the next big thing

becoming summer by degrees all too naturally

lovers of the closer look the finer concentration

becoming what we've always been

becoming what we'll always be

agents of continuance

 romancers of infinitude

martyrs to forevermore