The price of daughters

I had to go outside
to make sure the Earth was still there.
It was; it is;
it reminded me of you,
small mirror:
my smile on your face
my flash in your eyes
my defiance in your fists
my shortcomings in your flaws
known and unknown
—I feel heavy in my skin
like a mountain in the crust.






July 2020

Cavelight

Honestly I can’t imagine
though I can repeat
how caves form, over one
hundred million years—
can not fathom the Earth
in its infancy, leaving a pocket
for rocks to grow in, while
overhead no dinosaurs roamed.
I cannot even be amazed
because such galactic time scales
do not fit, mean nothing
in the electric light, seen
by eyes that saw above, grass
and tree-furred mountains
that all came after this.
Don’t touch the rock; but I did
just trying to grasp bewilderment
and in the end, said, it’s pretty
but too old to mean anything
to me, even though I want it to.
And like starlight, which is
mostly just as old, I take it all
despite trying not to, for granted.












July 12

Mushrooms

Friday night it rained
and so, under dusty Saturday thunder
handfuls of mushrooms appeared
in the neighborhood my sons rode
their bikes across, Dad strolling beside
—made me wonder how
these fungus flowers might be related;
one large organism, snaking underneath
the streets and driveways?, or sister-fronds,
cousins maybe: maybe old, centuries older
than our houses, construction circa 1973—
when did these spores land, taking root,
biding patiently for Oliver’s young hand
to pluck the stem and run his fingers
over the soft grey-brown underbelly ribs
while dark, dry clouds rumble overhead,
bikes on the pavement, Dad and sons
curious children together?






July 2020

Disappointment

The eclipse which wasn’t
left us up at midnight disappointed,
tasted bitter in our hopeful parts
like silence at a long reunion.
Expectation being what it is
I turned the burning logs and waited
to see penumbral majesty unveiled;
a forgotten conversation keeping on
as many do, in someone’s head.
But all the while, a quiet voice
corrects me: don’t blame the moon
that I expected what would never be.






July 2020