Comfort

I hope it gives you comfort,
Because it did not comfort me.
I hope it brings you solace
Although it did not bring me peace.
And I don’t know if I’m speaking
Of the ideal, or my own words—
Because I’m numb and dumb
And all my thoughts are
Worthless and unheard.

October 2019

Quilted Patchwork

The forest is quilted patchwork
and I am a needle drawing thread
along its paths and streams
leaving slender thoughts behind:
images in a human mind, not more.
We lay the blanket on a guest bed
to long survive what made this day:
the youth of sons, sprinting in Fall,
a patch of speckled trees and even
the hemming calm of a still afternoon.
Already these things have changed,
have begun to disappear; the quilt
lays upon a little-used bed, upstairs
in a room my mind will stumble upon,
some years hence, with unexpected joy.

October 2019

Sidewalk Tattoos

We remark, but seldom photograph Fall
because we assume she will return.
One year we will be mistaken
and we, or Earth, or Fall will end.
The sidewalk tattoos of leaves
remind me of impermanence: mine,
yours, and that of trees; and yet
the marks we make remain, bleeding
shadows on tomorrow’s steps.







October 2019

It gets better

It isn’t perfect, but close
and like afternoon in the fall
full of hope and promise;
then, as if to shame us,
to defeat our expectations—
it gets better, leaving us
with nothing but a smile
and the warmth of a love
from somewhere unreachable.

October 2019

This will not always be here

Sit in the room
feel its energy
its still, silent motion.
This will not always
be here. Not only
for you; for anyone.
The spaces we create
are impermanent,
and their brevity in time
gives them value.
Drink it in; accept it,
and let this moment
be what it will be:
now, and someday
only in memory.








October 2019

When she turns her head

When she turns her head
full upon us, we
with our most ancient blood
howl and descend
unknowing into fevers,
abandon civilized pretenses
for our animal selves.
We’ll pay Hell tomorrow;
roam the night on all fours.







October 2019

Disorder

Disorder the symphony
and notes make only noise;
disarrange the poem
to leave a naked alphabet.
What then still exists?
We stand and gawk
at a pool of static, so
recently meaningful.
Nudge it with our feet;
murmur, perhaps regret.
Can you recall them,
the rhythm or the tune,
their attendant emotions
and the lessons they taught?
If so—what is this here,
this pile of notes and letters
without meaning? For
the soul exists in ways
we cannot discard, no matter
how damaging this moment
or the next.








October 2019

Puppets

Array for me my puppets
who say what I instruct
enthrone their forms around me
and let them all fall silent.
For tonight it must not be myself
who speaks; not my hand
who plays their strings.
Whisper to me, stars;
sing, oh quiet night.
Let Pachelbel—let heaven
and its devils near
to plead their case.
Shut up my mouth,
my heart and mind;
let fire talk, and acts proclaim.
For I have said enough,
and exhausted wish
to never speak again.

October 2019

The end of a ship

They cut a rectangle in the Earth,
a final harbor for your empty ship,
then poured in dirt above to fill
its windless sails, secured and still.
For we captains do not descend nobly
astern our mortal barks until the end:
but rather leave them on eternal shores,
step lightly on a sandy beach, and pass
on to weightier things. In time, the sea
reclaims these hulls and sails; cells
and molecules we borrowed here
rejoin the planet and her living rhythms,
perhaps to bear another sailor on this sea.
Who knows? My body might possess
atoms that served better men, or worse;
they haven’t any use for these parts now.
In sacred silence I imagine you, unbodied,
pausing at new Eden’s thick tree line
while your ship, now cast adrift,
settles down into its final berth.
Farewell, for now; for I intend to follow
and seek you out along that shore
once Heaven’s tasks for me are done
and its winds propel my ship no more.





September 2019