As Us

Common as clover,

So rare in the universe

It nears nonexistence.

Value the day.

Crepuscular

Walking in the woods past sundown,

finding my way as much by habit

as by seeing in last light,

wide-eyed with the other animals

emerging as the humans leave the night,

time slows down and waits for me,

the pooling air becomes a sweeter song.

Is that because i have so little left to go,

or has it taken me this long to know

i've been living in a nocturne all along?

Nothing Original

Originality that's the ticket

a shocking new strophe

with syntax and meter

to conjure up ache


Love and its wreckage

mangled swans and the like

the death of a child

the isolation of aging

the usual existential insults

some self-inflicted

to beauty and grace


But i live in the hills

in the last weeks of summer

choke cherries ferment

to wine in the goldenrod

hawks in migration

sailing southwest after a storm

more sky in the crowns by the day



Oh i know nothing lasts

but i cherish this life

this common life in the country

common mundane my own.

Spectacle

A few acres in September

Is  more than we need,

Bee-loud, regal,

Beyond us.

Zugunruhe

please expand

the flocks combine

a roar of wings above the drier field

we feel it too the urge to fly

nomads restless in the clearer night

deeper in the banded velvet void

seeking peace expecting less

chipmunks clucking in the stonerows

deer in the sweetcorn empty husks

purple stains upon the path

the earth-song of the cricket through it all

the sound of our own breathing

the roaring of our blood

migration through the inner dark

we hear the apple fall

Belief in Autumn

please expand

the morning air above the field

was all awash with angels

        if you believe in angels

flying in place as white mist

rising with the slipping sun

 through the boughs of heaven

        if you believe in heaven

keeping your delicate balance

as the leaves burn and roll.

—with lines by Richard Wilbur

Faint, Brief, Gone

But you were more,

And still the air connects us,

Bridges of air connecting everything,

The heart walks them in peace,

How close our souls, how distant,

Blue sky between clouds,

Clouds, clouds, the bridging blue sky

Of our two separate dreams.

September Solidago

please expand

   

the field flares golden in the sun

september solidago

the sky spun clean by ocean storms

the summer's end that spring had formed

the aging year and all of us

to watch the autumn come

droning with the wasps and bees

september solidago