Degrees

Thirty three and yet

the snow insists

on being snow

leans in from the south

as fine as talc

erasing the woods

across the ravaged field

snow upon snow

just as my thoughts

insist on being

what they are

which is to say

obsessed

with should-have-knowns

unrelenting and aslant

distances dimished

east and west

deepening layers

day upon day

the snow at seventy two.

Mountain Verse

  

Snow rides the wind

through the laurel,

hides in the run

purling over stones,

one poem rising

after the next

and not a word spoken.

Force Quit

  

Squandering flow in the lowercase realms

Of facebook and amazon,

So many boxes and clever laments,


I open the door and follow the dog

Into the wind and the sky,


Woods on all sides and the hill underneath,

Scents of the mountainside, no one in sight,

Far from the likes and the buys,


In a world without things or opinions

Nothing is blocking the view.

A View of Being

Face to the sun

At the top of the field

In a soft winter,

The hum of existence

As wind lifts the page.

Who else are we looking for

To show us the way?

In Winter Woods at Nightfall

  

Wet snow at twilight

Holds light to the ground


Call of an owl

Deep in its kingdom


The heart is glad

For thing after thing

Miasma

Click to expand.

  

Haze in a winter

that won't take hold

Unease in a season

of alternative facts

Fire in the stove

or the furnace running?

Ice shelf collapsing

the size of Long Island

Candle flame

and the wind coming

Inauguration Day

  

In Washington the billionaires are toasting

With caviar and oysters in chilled vodka

Each other and their money and their coup

Damp and avaricious in black tie

In the lobby of the President's hotel.


I eat a peanut butter sandwich at the sink

And go outside to cut a few days' firewood

Ancient poems in the pocket of my coat

Having all I need among the trees and hoping

There's nothing here the wealthy really want.

The Uses of Freedom

Reading in the woods

by candlelight, the door

propped so the dog

can be where she wishes

as I can, hearing only

the rain on the siding,

the drip in the flue,

and the echoes

of crows surely gleaming.