Blaze

To set aside rage

And sit quietly under the leaves

Under the blaze of yourself

And go past it

And live in the body of the  finch

And in the sky

And in the heart of your own gift of seed.

–based on a poem by Adam Zagajewski

Dispatches From Sunday

Lophocampa caryae. Click to enlarge, then click again.

Yesterday the worms

were chewing

over the well.


Despite what we

know and have done

I felt limited, alone.


I envy stone,

no word, no sound,

–– the spell.






– with a bow to William Stafford and Yehuda Amichai

Ascetical

In the middle of the woods

In the cabin that you built

In autumn's salad days

Where living surges

In your ears hear

Existence roaring all

Confusions roaring all

Emptinesses roaring

Unexplainable desires

Almost too much to ask.

-

Embrace

Briar with the afternoon behind it

Hooks my flesh and holds me there,

Bids me take a closer look,

Blood brilliant on my arm,

Praising shorter days and change,

welcoming what comes.

-

Skywalkers

There is no beauty in the sky, but in the eye that sees it.

Health, high spirit, serenity, these the great landscape painters.

Let us engage our bodies and our hearts, strong while beauty lasts,

'Ere we rock beside the fire, dreaming of the sky as it once was.

-with words by Henry David Thoreau, October 3, 1859

The Implications of Dark Energy

Now that we think

The universe flies apart

In acceleration we

Seek each other out,

Or should, the physics

Of this world imperiled

Beyond our little fears,

No longer limited

Or saved by gravity.







-

Celts

The sky presses down on the field

The green world  going to ground

Men stand revealed in the mists

And the wind is the sound of lost souls.

-

Passing

Finger-cold,

Clouds dragging

Their damp skirts

 Over the ridges,

Snow on the crest

Of Laurel Mountain

When we crossed

In the early dark

Coming back,

Already in recovery

From the excesses

Of  the city,

And from their lack.

-