The Woods Are Old Friends

I came to the woods

to rock on the cabin porch listening

to the wind new in the leafing trees

and look through green lace

at white clouds sailing on blue sky.

An inchworm repelled

from the roof to alight on my coat

and measure my sleeve.

A seed from a dandelion

parachuted onto my boot.

Squirrels had gnawed off the edge

of the arms of my great grandmother's chair,

a sturdy mission oak i had painted

Scout blue forty years ago

with leftover enamel

when i patched the old International

and my children ran happy

and poor through the oatfield

with the sun in their hair.

I tell you all this

because i got what i came for

and it no longer hurt me

if an old love had turned venal and mean.

The small things were best,

like the fat Junebug

banging its head on the screen.

Former Lives

Rain off the mountain

mad for the sea,

water the miracle,

as were we.

Iser's run where it marries the Casselman River.

Diurnal

Each day i walk the woods

Surprised anew

By all within my reach

*

What the poet wrote is true

Nature has the most to teach

—quoting Jane Kenyon.

Homeland

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Sugars leaf

and the woods fills in,

oaks in the gray

as Maypoles bloom wax,

walking the path

through fading violets,

the dog full of rabbit

and the canopy closing,

beasts in the wild ungoverned

solitary, calm, and saved.

Agenda

Narcissus

Nowhere to go,

So much to see.

Pennsylvania Night

It was as though

you buried the sun

in the Pennsylvania night

in the velvet dark

wet with tears

never to see

the night's sun.

Sanctum

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At the back of the field

at the edge of the woods

where shadow begins

white violets bloom

facing each other

sky touches the ground

and nothing else matters.

Outside Season

An akene takes flight.

The day is slowing, the rain easing,

the wind becomes a breeze,

and when it clears

it will be outside season,

the population will appear

dressed in gear

delivered to their doors,

joining those of us whose clothes

were never washed with stones,

good canvas weathered naturally

on we who never went inside.

Lilac Sleigh

Coming down from the hill between rains,

the sky leaning out and over,

time slowing down as summer approaches

in a lilac sleigh drawn by swallows and bees

filling the yard with its scent, and you think

maybe that was the best you could do.

—with an image conflated from Mandelstam.

Ridgetop

Sensation of depth

A hollow in the chest

Like the send in the night,

The creek in the valley

Loud with rain

Like the text of her death.