Autumnal

The top of the hill is a stage

for the great balancing act

against the big screen of heaven

the transit of monarchs against towering vapor

the glide of hawks through evaporated seas

the life and the death in the fields

the seeds the wreckage the burrowing voles

the day and the dark and the light and the night

Unsettles the migrating birds as they flock

we feel it too the old urge to move

we feel it too but we stay

loving too much the world that we have

loving the chance to be in it

expecting the best as an act of will

expecting the best and finding it here

finding it here where we are.

Nomad

No use to embrace

Your compulsion to wander

O walker upright

No use to confess

You've searched all your life

O seeker of kindness and light

For someone to hear your confession.

Genius

Please click to enlarge.

Orb weavers reign

In the goldenrod field.

I am less important

Than the grass.

The End of Fantasy

Monarch and Sunflower

You made

the extraordinary

your province

Splanchnic stirrings

experimental

ventures of the id

The ordinary ever after

masking the surreal

my lost love

After Your Call

Cornfield, Upper Turkeyfoot

 

Crickets acorns sunsets

Long vistas clean lines

Vanishing points

On uncluttered horizons

Planetary interstellar

To feel our suspension

Hurtling through infinity

In our jacket of air

Thunderheads harvests meteors

Katydids leaf falls buck rubs

All the more miraculous

For universal solitude

Monarchs cellos E minor

Ubiquitous longing

Your favorite word

My penultimate state

Trumpeting geese overhead

And I miss you.

The Origin of Art

Father's blue today

Mother would confide

          Which meant

          Be careful what you say

Father was blue

On Thanksgiving

          And Mother

          Ate off the kitchen floor

Therefore poetry

          And the conviction

That happiness is

Too much to expect

          And the quiet days

          Are gods.

Was

I like to think

I saved you

In the end

Knowing

It is better

Not to know

But O what

Could have been

Instead of was

The Summoning

Waiting for the train to pass, Neshannock Falls, 1934. Cecil Hall photo

Help me, great grandfather,

to wait for what's coming,

to lie down in the garden

and sleep in the sun.

Lead me, old-timer,

to sit near the hearth,

rocking in silence, 

wicks turned down low,

Firelight on cheekbones,

lost sons and lost daughters,

the mantel clock counting,

help me, Will Hall,

Checking your watch

behind the house

where the rails used to be,

waiting for the coal train to pass,

Black smoke for the grade,

The Engineer in the cab,

his elbow and kerchief,

passing on time.

The house is still standing,

I am there waiting,

waiting with ghosts

for the ghost train.

Neshannock Falls, 1917. Cecil Hall photo

     

     

    

     

As Leaffall Begins

      

Inside

your eyes

again

Inside

my mind

again

I can hear

the leaves falling

again

Breathless

without

again

I can feel

myself turning

to dust

Breathless

and falling

again

Two strangers

turning

to dust.

—Recomposed lyrics, "Into Dust," Hope Sandoval/David Roback.

Mammals

     

I speak to the beeves when I bicycle past,

They listen together politely, ceasing to chew,

I have their attention, we voice no opinions,

I like these big, warm animals on the same hill,

The wire between us, fencing them out and me in.