natives

i always forget how bright it is above clouds

how empty, how it must be so silent

except for the planes, which is

my only access point, of course--

thoughts drifting to native species,

realizing with a shock that Pilots

are the closest thing to residents here:

the tailless, wingless, furless ape

the only animal to be discovered.

june 2023

night

big bright full moon

i can tell only because

the stones are glowing

and wind's in the trees

june 2023

shut-ins

do you think closed windows are a sin

she asked, at summer dusk dangling legs

into the pond of an imagined childhood--

it's in a book somewhere; i'm listening to it

in my earbuds, glancing next to me, hoping

nobody will try to speak to me.  She spreads

her arms overhead in tranquil joy: see the beauty

of a late sunset! As the train thunders deep

underground, all of us tucked into screens.

2023

Moss

Moss between poured concrete slabs

trees growing from the tops of boulders

late summer spiders making giant webs

squirrels in their nests, impossibly high 

bees making hives where I’d knocked them down

last year’s flowers, blooming after the freeze:




inevitable Life

indelible Beauty

insatiable thirst for growth and light




like us, after death

after sleep

after giving up

in a moment: 




well,

maybe we can—

the universe smiles at us

and time thunders on

clearing the way.

Potted plants

The idler wrote,

bloom and fade,

pretty petals drift away

from the ugly stalk,

which will in time

, read it back in a loop,
an infinite sentence; then
crumpled it up; sighed;
put his forehead on the desk.











april 2023

the Orbiter

earth must realize the vastness

its Sol-centric journey among other stars

circling the galactic drain of gravity

is nothing if not unfairly limited:

let me free! she must silently scream

curving back into her orbit

all of us blithely unaware

she longs for our demise

march 2023

purpose

There was a plan for you
impacting millions: over time, you see;
a series of small impressions
meaningful as a Monet.


You did it all, but cannot know
any of the priceless results:
not in your lifetime.
The canvas is millennia.


So, what now?
What can the brush paint
after its last use? Perhaps
nothing, by definition--


Cans of discarded brushes
set on the old windowsill
framing a summertime cosmos
must please the artist, I suppose.









November 2022

The Unformed Lands

We travel the unformed lands

lending meaning to things unmade

raising stones that will be ruins;

only in our time do they carry weight.

I lift ageless dirt in hands that wither

enrich the empty ground with feeling

and in a moment that means nothing

imagine the value of everything--

the morning walk of a man a world away

the funeral rites of a soul I never met

the strike of tools against unknown Earth

the beating of a stranger's heart in love.

We travel the unformed lands

to create the world by witness.

See the air with the light it does not contain

for darkness is everywhere we are not.

November 2022

Meditation

Dust the grass off of your boots

be tender to the ones in need

tomorrow isn't promised, but it's probable

and the gardens of our years require us.








July 2022

Desire

The smell of an ice cream parlor
--indistinctly sweet, complex,
this minute fudge, caramel, then
bubblegum, maybe cake batter--
is not one of the ice cream choices.
I don't want anything.
We stare at frozen buckets, desiring
and hope we ordered something close
since we'll never have what haunts us.
Which is not to say I do not want.
Like candied nuts from a street vendor.
You could stand nearby, just breathing,
loving the aroma for exactly what it is
for free, I guess--but none of us ever do.
I only want un-specifically.





July 2022

Peninsula

 We anticipate the peninsula will be an arm

laying on the water.  Now it is unfolding

separating itself from itself; 

a long low smear of land

for quite a while. 

Afterwards, 

like a memory, it collapsed 

back upon itself, and eventually 

we forgot it ever was anything else.

June 2022

The Inspection

On a Saturday morning

in April, after a night rain

budding trees sparkle in a gentle chill;

some surfaces are too bright to look at.

I sit in line for inspection:

they'll make sure the car is working.

I do the same for myself,

with coffee & depression.

The earth proclaims joy, celebration

of life returning!, Returning!, after the cold

but even hearing it, I do not hear it.

...

I see it, though. I scribble notes about it

calmly storing it away for a time

when I will join the celebration.

...

Like coffee, like cars, like inspections,

even like Spring herself, I know

this little shadow, too, must pass.

I will wait here patiently for it; mean time

the trees are pretty along the road.

I write with an empty hand.










April 2022

The View from Ox and Old Chain Bridge

sometimes i watch
the whole gliding mass
drifting up over the hillcrest and down,
sloped like a mist, stretched across
the contours of the Earth--

and sometimes i pick out
one two-point object from the flickering
stream: we flow together predictably,
approach this intersection where
we both take Human shape--

and swoop wide right:
around: and through: while i sit and wait
to glide, drift, flicker, flow;
journey interrupted like a meteor
falling toward the Sun--

when we die, we'll say
life was how it had to be: churned and coursed
through channels impervious, necessary.
and then we'll watch the gliding mass
settle like dew upon the Spring.




September 2015

stairs

_______________

we took stairs
to the rust-glow sundown roof
and cigarette end of a crystal Age.
there, held close against summer's evening chill
i whisper your lost eternities--
it's all chipped-side, inside, every side cracked up,
our bunker-down answers empty, shrill--
rubbing afternoon sleep-caked eyes,
a weather-beat child coming to realize
your cheek is the best part of sunsets.
at Age's end the sun slinks down
fog-slow, a lover's gentle hands upon the sky,
groggy floor-strewn nap interrupted.
there is such death in making love;
so goes the world,
closing our clear-brilliant Age.
amidst brick chimneys four floors up
we watch our neighbors' turgid lives
cheek to cheek,
standing together at the end, love.
we stand together, each
deep-alone eternal moment
stair-dropped into the next
cheek to cheek.




July 2010