We Must

Act.

A Promise of Geminids

A quieter morning

for the ice,

frost runing off

with the shadows,

hard cold facts

evanescing in light,

a pigment-dyed sky

promising meteors

over the hill.

She was like that.

In memory of Kelly Jean O'Brien

on the 42nd anniversary of her birth.

The Sound of Water

Please click to enlarge.

The dogs listen in the wetland

under the thatch where the live things move

under new snow were the spring moves

on its way to the rill in the woods

on its way to the creek in the valley

on its way to the river on its way on its way

to the bay and the sea and the mixing currents

of the planet on its way 'round the sun in the spin of forever

when we listen close enough we can hear it too for awhile.

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Nearly Night

Nearly night

Birch and water nearly bright,

Wandering the fields in rain

Rapt in a story he won't tell,

An old refrain of foolish love

Of leaping up and falling back.


Sleep well dear friend

And let him be.

The leaping up, you see,

The half he most forgot,

That was happiness.

–with an observation by Louise Glück

Words for Deaf Ears

The world is sacred.

It cannot be improved.

Treat it as an object,

and you'll lose it.

– 3,0000 year-old wisdom from the T'ao te Ching.

-

Consumed

Evening creased by enterprise

scarring sky and riddling the hills

née heaven and née earth

burning up the only world we know

our needs will become baser by and by.

-

Driving in Fog

Please click to enlarge.

Fog grows out of the valley

reducing the world to near distance

my fears and my confusions

approaching in wraithlike procession

reminding me how little

i really know for sure

and how long that lasts.

Easy now, i tell myself,

you're more than halfway home.

Stay calm. Keep going.

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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.

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