Mid-pitch

Mid-pitch the snow

flying off the shovel
somewhere between
blizzard and sunshine
the tethers snapped and
I was free.

Plunging into the ether
I passed through the
mirrored walls
of high seas and
pirate ships with
towering masts and
I managed to escape.

It was funny how
I only had to distract myself
from my captivity
long enough to catch sight
of the world
on the other side of the glass and
I finally had a reason.

(December 29, 2009)

In Bed Alone

This is what I found after I thought I had found myself:

Questions and they

did not seem to have answers but that did not stop

me from asking them

and driving myself crazy so that I

despaired of all I had learned and all I had

accomplished over the past couple years of hard

core learning but anyway

when the sun is shining I am ok and that is almost all
I want except at night when I am lying

in bed and I am all

by myself and I am perfect-

ly comfortable but nevertheless I am still aware

of the emptiness around me which is

as far as I can tell
the empty form
of a man

(and I don't mean God,
as though God
could take the place of

a man)

the chemical compound created by us would fill up
my bed and would spill over and flood the room and the house and the yard and

the fields in back and the world beyond and shoot into eternity and we would be

happy together in spite of and maybe even because of
all the things that may have once

irritated us about someone else but now

have transformed into nothing more and nothing less than

idiosyncracies of perfection.

The crunch underfoot

I remember a morning
(there must have been many)
when I walked out the back door
and down the steps
(wooden, my father built them)
on my way to school
it was winter
and still with the undissolved
big red vitamin
tucked away in the side of my mouth
(lied and told my mother I had
swallowed it--an
impossibility)
now the red sweet coating worn off
and the bitter white
vitamin whose particular bitterness
even now, forty-some years
later, i can taste;
I trudged
down the gravel driveway
two long ruts from street to
backyard, the car in and out,
snow crunching underfoot
until I reached the downspout
tucked away on the side of the house
between jutting out walls and bay windows
below a tower,
there in the multicolored pool of
tiny pebbles
lying in a shallow puddle
I spit out my
vitamin,
but nothing grew
there in the spring.

Stowe

Glittering
diamonds under
rippling water
as though cast
haphazardly
into a shallow stream
and the sunlight
late afternoon's
got tangled in the facets
and blazed furiously
and angrily in its attempts
to be loosed and freed.

I do not need correcting. I know
they were not diamonds
even though I
with poetic license
claimed otherwise.
As for diamonds, yes
I know this, too. They are
common carbon rocks
forged by
geology and time and pressure
but cut into gems
and trumped into false value
for monetary gain they become nevertheless
beautiful and
still are
prized and coveted and flaunted
by women
lovers of all things
sparkly and good.

I was only pretending
when I said
that I walked toward
gemstones
when I was pulled toward
the stream
by fragments of something
ephemeral lying under
water
reflecting sunlight
left behind in
Stowe.

Saturday As The Snow Fell

Something had come to me when I was
standing at the kitchen sink,
like a light had been turned on and what was dark became visible,
or a comparison had been made that was stark in its clarity,
and then
without warning,
it was gone.

I do not recall if it was about snow
or travel, if it was about the children or
about divorce, if it was about holidays
or every day, if it was about learning or talking,
or
if it was about something else entirely.

But
given my bent--
poetry, love, longing, fate--
I have an inkling
an idea
the faintest reminder
that it probably had something to
do with
you and me,

which is
to say
fate longing love and
something just like this.

(December 26, 2009)

In honor of Baudelaire's Tristesses de la Lune

Sorrows of the Moon

Tonight the moon is dreaming lazily
a seductress in languid repose, her cushioned bed,
the roundness of her breast, gentle caress of idle hands,
a tender hush, closer now to sleep

Soft pillow of night, she drifts upon the satin slide of sky,
and swooning, drapes herself quietly down,
sleepy eyes regarding the sapphire heavens
deep blue darkness dotted with blossoms of white

Behold what errant tear escapes her languid gaze
and reflecting iridescence,
drops swirling into the mist of evening;
still awake, a poet, reverential villain of sleep

reaches forth, cupped hand trembling to receive
the liquid opal of the moon,
draws limpid treasure back, tucks it in to sleep within his heart,
hidden, safe, secure, far from the brilliance of the sun.

Il est doux

Il est doux, doux comme un ciel de velours,
Il est si doux, comme la chaleur d'un four,
Doux, c'est lui, comme un rêve fugace
Bien doux, très doux, comme une prière de grâce.

Mon amour est doux comme l'aube d'été,
Plus doux encore, comme un baiser jeté,
Sa voix aussi chère, comme la chanson des fées,
Étonnant, doux, comme une nuit étoilée.

Sa touche est si tendre, légère,
Ses yeux sont si gentils, brun-verts.
Son poème était un cadeau surprise,
Sa douceur, voila, une colombe grise

Creaking of Beds

That was the familiar creak
of the climbing into bed
a fleeting sound
on the reel.
A dusting off of both feet
swish swish
against one another
lights out.
Sinking into night
side by side but
lives and continents
apart.

Tired springs of
another bed shared
years earlier
monsters hid underneath.
In the night
I would leap over
the moat of painted floor
to avoid their reach.
Pull up covers, not dare to
look over the side of the bed
kept eyes from the looming closet
its door creaking alone.

Now it's just me
hauling myself up
into the high bed
vast ocean for one.
I set sail into dreams
push off the dusty shore
littered with books
and poetry.
I close the doors to
closets and sweep
the monsters from
under the bed.

Amy's Dad Died Yesterday

Amy's dad died yesterday

when she was on her way home

from another funeral.

Just last week

her husband had a phone call

and heard the news

his father had died.

A hurried trip across country

by plane and up into

Canada to hear kaddish.

Shovels of dirt onto a casket

in cold ground,

the end of a life once held behind

barbed wire.

She and two of her sons,

the oldest away at college

in the midst of final exams,

flew towards home while her husband

stayed behind to

sit shiva with his mother.

In between flights in Chicago

Amy called her sister across the lake

just saying hello,

and heard the news

their father was in the hospital,

heart attack.

Later that afternoon

it was already too late;

there was nothing they could do

but keep him comfortable.

She called her husband

to interrupt his grieving

with her own.

He will fly home in a snowstorm today.

A little later

the other call came

that he had died

and then Amy began

making her own calls.

I am sad inside

and winter does not help,

the nausea has returned.

Sometimes a giving up of the ghost

sounds like a relief

if you are the one doing it.

Now Amy is planning another trip

for another funeral.

Blizzards complicate December travel.

This time the two boys will stay home

with their father,

the oldest still busy with college exams,

and Amy will come alone

to the cold

winter of home and death.

Before he died,

her brother said

and her sister agreed,

their father said, "Oh!"

as though he had seen

something grand

or someone dear

and a smile broke across his face,

sedated though he was.

The look

like he was running
toward happiness

lingered

until death.

I was loading groceries

into my car

when Amy told me

all this

and snow was swirling

all around

and it was dark

and very cold

and I was suddenly very sad

and alone

and wished for arms to run to

myself

arms backlit by firelight and warmth

and most of all

love

and knew I did not have them.

Many years ago

I answered another phone call.

My son was perhaps three

and now he is more than twenty years

past that.

It was Amy, crying.

I remember the exact words she said

Mom died.

Last night, after she told me

about what happened just before

her father died,

Amy said, crying,

"I think Mom came to get him."

Wedding Morning

fragrant cool ocean of rosewater

it is the morning of my vows
i have risen brightly and glad
smiled upon the break of day
maiden voyage before me
happy little dress awaits
a wreath of meadow flowers
will twist through my careless hair


sunshine and open air
no shoes upon my feet
i shall dance through laughing grass
subtly perfumed from my early bath
thus shall i pledge my troth
and covenant discovery
self, husband, life


softly step into rose petals swirling
submerged in baptismal ceremony
steeped in nuptial roses
nascent moment of sacrfice
holy altar hidden door
i prepare my body as an offering
for the beautiful one i love

writing on a steamed window

still the dark of morning

the kitchen window covered with steam

the house waking up and warming

i see the snow lying outside

beyond the cold wet glass

and my fingers are already

painting bison on the cave walls

hidden away for generations unborn

shaping heaven and earth

on an old window in a wooden frame

forty-five years ago

Black Angus

There is a dusting of frost on the Angus this morning; I had to do a double-take.
The last time I had seen them, they had been running around the yard, one behind the other, lumbering really, their heaving, massive bodies propelled along by what looked like effort.
They reminded me of overweight, out of shape men.
When I marveled to my friends, the one who has raised animals for family food laughed
that I had thought their running odd, and said it was normal for them to run.
There had been four boys that day; I had counted.
This is how I think of them now: boys, not men. Two black, one brown, another black, running in a line.
They seemed to be playing.

This morning, I saw them again and was just as intrigued as the last time, when their running together caught my eye.
I pass them every time I drive this way; some days I forget to look.
There was a mantle of white sparkling on the back of one of them, and I looked quickly for the others to see if they, too, were glittering in the bitter cold.
All were wearing the same cloak of an early morning in winter, a veil of hoarfrost.
One was rubbing his head against a pole in the ground.
One or two were lying down nearby, one was walking off in another direction.
I like their ordinary presence, so casual, so unquestioning.


The Angus live next door to the school.
The teenagers play football and lacrosse on a field they share with those steam-engine-like Angus.
There is a small stream and perhaps a barbed-wire fence between them.
Maybe this is all that is needed to keep the Angus at bay, to keep them from charging taunting teenage boys and throwing them afield like home runs.
Twitching their tails, caught up in their own thoughts, chasing one another around the yard on some days, rubbing their faces against poles on others, wearing frost on an early March morning, lazing in the shade on a sultry August afternoon, all the while watched over by someone I have never seen, someone who must watch them closely, someone who will know when it is time to slaughter their history of frost and sunshine and turn them into food.

Bonaparte

Josephine did not care that Napoleon was an emperor.
She did not want what he had to offer.
Even his love letters did not move her anymore.
What a fickle thing is love.

Good Friday

Where have you taken Him?


Where have you taken my Lord?


I have stolen away my Lord.
I have misplaced Him in my thievery and, like Mary, I am weeping at the empty tomb.
I hid Him in my robes, carried Him away, jostling among the folds of heavy material as I ran.
Breathless, chest heaving, arms tingling, I put Him down, shook out the folds of my garment.
Like Death, I stretched out my shrouded arm, and pointed, away.
I turned my face and did not look at His as I cast Him out, bid Him go.
I did not follow His departure with my eyes.
Something glittered brighter somewhere else.
And, Oh! Today, this day
I miss the Gold of His presence.
I stand among Joseph’s brothers, in good company.
I pray thee, tell me where I can find Him
that I may fall before Him in repentance and in love.
I have stolen away my Lord.
I have misplaced Him in my thievery, and like Mary, I am weeping at the empty tomb.

Icicles

Tinkling sound of bells
Dripping icicles
the eaves of the big gray house
In winter
And they taste so much like
Icicles do
Which is to say
They tasted like the house

I Must Have Been Insane

In the end it wasn’t about
whether I had ever loved you
but whether I could stand you
anymore
in my life without wanting to die
almost all the time.
In the beginning it wasn’t about
whether I wanted to love you
because that was the furthest thing from my mind
when I met you.
I think you were my project
unbeknownst to me,
an innocent guinea pig from across the ocean
whose accent I could cure and whose vocabulary
I could enrich and whose life
I could make happen.
So I loved you and I fixed you and you got gold stars
for charm, for intelligence, for looks
and in secret you called me names and told me
I was worthless and needed to be treated that way
because I liked it,
and all the while I was saying no.
But you only believed what you wanted to believe
which was
mostly
that you deserved all the good things in life
and honor and praise besides
and that you were angry when others
did not give you your due.
As for me, well, you were certain that
I deserved to be called names
derided, betrayed, lied to, ignored, neglected, tolerated, flattered
and I ended up believing it, too.