Death at bat

We all have our turn at bat.
All eyes on you, the pitcher
marks his attack, then uncoils
like a spring! And your swing
connects, sudden and sure,
sends your soul sailing deep
and fast into the unknown sleep.
You run a little ways ahead,
perhaps pause at first and look
back at us--but you cannot speak
nor can we clearly hear. Behind you
perhaps this year or several hence,
I'll step into the pitcher's glare,
my first time at the plate, too,
and with sweating palms
take my place to join you.





September 2019

Oliver painting a pumpkin

The pumpkin is the universe
for a few minutes; all galaxies,
singularities, the empty vacuum
of spacetime itself compacts
to this orange husk, being painted
blue, opposite its nature, because
it is his favorite color, and
he has the brush, neither of which
have anything to do with this
minuscule universe, this
brief analogy of creation.





September 2019

A good day

It is still a good day
even now, the sky
and its clear blue chill
sparkling in the sun,
turning leaves orange.
The universe and its
motions are enormous;
my joys and sorrows
composing but a corner,
barely enough to shade
or illuminate even me.





September 2019

Night on the road

At night on the road nothing exists
The high way cuts across
Endless fields on top of the world
Or a forest between the galaxies
We ascend dark mountains and fall
into the gravity wells of dead stars

The universe pools from our headlights
Sliding quickly past us on the ground
Standing light, static in our own view
Asphalt and reflectors scrolling through

Together we are crowded and common
But alone—who knows, perhaps
The first or last of humanity itself
For miles we travel unseen & unseeing
Only with relief to find another soul
Whipping past and through the dark like us
On the road at night when nothing exists





September 2019

Confidence in Fog

Lower your eyes
to look close:
watch your feet on the path,
see the pebbles and dirt.
Don’t frighten yourself
trying to see through the fog
but move slowly,
breathe the rich air
carefully watching
what you can still see.





September 2019

Midnight reclaimed

Blinking awake, years asleep—
drowsily I recollect
flying on suburban streets
to deliver hot midnight
pizzas; an image of self
before all this.

I’d climb on roofs, or play in
river beds, tenderly cross
high railroad overpasses,
eat scraps hungrily; stay up
for jazz on the radio.
Or I’d wander

moodily at dusk under
power lines in thunder storms.
Alone, I could face despair
with joy, or grim nights with hope;
bright celebrant of my own
fierce energy.

What now? Who am I? Asleep,
numb, hidden behind myself,
a joyless imp, waiting here
to be told to smile? No more!
Here I reclaim my midnights,
their reckless joys:

now rich with adult duties,
long memories, deep heartbreaks,
parenthood, and higher stakes.
No flinching now. Life cuts deep,
but leave me awake to feel
its bright knife edge!

September 2019

Don't close your eyes

Don't close your eyes
to the burning light,
the disaster scene--
let it wash over you
fully, feel every
microscopic tragedy,
acknowledge it all.

Don't recede darkly
to your corners
carved so deep within;
stay here at the mouth
of your solitude,
burning with every
unhidden hurt & shame.

Why? Because
suffering is its own
meaning & lesson;
because feeling
is all or nothing,
it cannot choose one,
and pain is part of all.

September 2019

By Proxy

We speak to each other by proxy:
our imaginations of one another;
then humans who are real respond
to words made for caricatures.
The air vibrates; light waves reflect;
we interpret and try to understand—
sometimes to find that we are known,
sometimes to find we never were.
But who knows? Who can judge?
My imagined You might know Me,
or not; maybe my imagination of You
resembles the real You; who can tell?
Be kind, and sometimes sad: we hold
each other only ever at arm’s length.

September 2019

Cicada Dissonance

Dissonance bends the perfect chord
With a sharp note in its belly:
Offends the late summer locust
Rhythms buzzing in the trees.
Premonition settles like dust
Lurking at dusk, then springs—
But not; the grass never shivers
And our hearts grow dim and powdered.

September 2019

The Iron Bird

His heart,
an iron bird,
learns to fly
by falling—
whether torn apart
or from the sky.

September 2019

Stoplight thought

Children are like clouds
passing over irrelevant Earth
indifferent as a fog;
but we stop at lights
and worry about being
fifteen minutes late
or unintended offense.

September 2019

Let it be real

When noon is dark on dark
and even dawn betrays us
holding back its sacred light;
when hope is cheap & cloying,
cheap perfume on carcasses—
don’t cheapen it pretending
it isn’t what it is: let it be real.
Sometimes life is like that.
Only acknowledge: some
times it won’t be like that, too.

September 2019

Summer at the Davidson Pool

It was a summer you could see
in the shimmer of air all around
and sparkling in the pool; glowing
on skin and filling a glass of wine—
yet in the afternoon, drying off my
freckled shoulders in a muggy dusk,
I feel a chill in the wind at times
and grin widely at the idea of fall.

September 2019

Lily at Union Station

Your large eyes pierce me
with their innocent curiosity
all in unexpected ways—
I did not realize how I’d
fall in love, breathlessly
: father doting shamelessly
on this little woman, this
separate adult in her childhood,
thinking an old man’s thoughts
about your future, even now
standing on Union Station steps
watching homeless tragedies
and knowing I’ll hoist you
upon my shoulders, through
all the years to come, even
when I cannot do it any more.

September 2019

Moving

There is always a reason
to keep moving; I learn
from Oliver, who sits
quite still in pretend cars
doing nothing, just there—
for minutes, but it seems
usually he could for hours.
Or perhaps he learned it
from me, from my way
of sitting alone on the porch
with my thoughts, and the air,
just patient and empty,
maybe hiding from the things
that need doing—there
is always a reason to keep moving
—but there is an equal reason
to sit still.

September 2019