Slowing

Fire in

the stove

smoke in

the flue

powering

down to

my own

dormancy

hoping

to begin

anew.

Reassurance

There are things

we live among

that hold us still

primary singular things

the reed under snow

the post in the water

the sky the flat sky

we believe in light

the feather on the pond.

We are always wrong

you about me

me about you

though the things

we live among

are right

and to see them

is to know.

The Road

Nightfall at the end of autumn.

Shines with rain

soon ice

soon snow

soon drifts

unbroken dunes

with any luck

too deep for trucks

a realm of silence

slowing the quickest day

until the township plow.

Storm Warning

Please click to widen

Skyline where tomorrow makes its stand

subtle as the storm begins to brew

i ask for nothing but to watch the woods

fill up with snow in the company of dogs

and other loving souls too few who think

they know me as i am and will be still

safe and free to ache in the bliss of the blizz.

So Sudden, So Fierce

The woods exposed for what they are

most of the time

yet we think of them

in leaves.


In the dark we recognized each other.


Now with old age nearly beginning

do we dare confess

even to the smallest joys

as their disappearance approaches?

The Early Dark

Afield in the rain in the early dark

an easy rain tapping in the early dark

tapping overhead in the early dark

soaking us through in the early dark

the death of a child

the death of a child

afield in the easy rain tapping.

Steadied by Home Despite Mayans

It may seem that time is coming to an end

if we let ourselves give in to fear.

Lucky for us we live in a world of seasons.

We can spend the day in the comforts of home,

and it would be wrong to think what we felt there

was somehow shrunken or partial

just because we never left the yard.

Here, too, is the grandeur and splendor of the world,

time circling back on itself, hungry for its own tail.

–with clauses adapted from Louise Glück

Relentless

The next system moves in

dispassionate and unrelenting

for that is the nature of time

breaking over us like a great wave

leaving us gasping at what we do to each other.

The past is happening even now.