Heat & Water

We see the pot
but it’s the heat
does the cooking;
with pots and pans
to focus, and contain.
We favor soap
but it’s the water
does the cleaning;
with suds to break
the surface tension.
But you don’t see them
heat & water, I mean
in catalogs.

March 2021

Philosophy

So, I mean
is it light or dark
good or bad
wet or dry?
Pick one. Or
I will allow even:
is it one? Or is it
more or less.
Our wet sneakers
made overlapping
ink blots on the deck
—not even; on the steps.
A simple thing to
so baffle philosophy.
Say what you like;
sometimes it just is
and there is no description.

River-trees

Trees are rivers, flowing
not to the ocean
but to the Sun; or
when winter shivers
back to Earth. They are
slow, solid rivers
whose bones compose
much of Man’s feeble creations;
but it is their motion I value:
what remains can be felled,
chopped, burned, sawn up.
Perhaps I feel the same about myself.

February 2021

The Sing-Song of Frozen Birds

The winter birds promise us spring
and teach us optimism,
7-ounce beasts that shiver and starve
then sing sweetly when we come outside.
“I’m cold,” I say—“let’s head back in,”
while they cheerfully peck for
seeds, a stray berry, anything with energy
to survive: until Spring, that Heaven time
when food is warm and everywhere.
A time worth singing of,
for optimists who live in frozen nests.

February 2021

Freezing

The temperature froze
motion itself
kept the last drip
and next last also
perpetual, transfixed—
put another way
it sprung the rest of us
free from time, to wander
in those moments:
patrons at the art show,
students at the museum,
to murmur quietly
mill about, whispering—
Look at that! Did you see—
pondering, as if framed
the moment Winter froze.

February 2021