tiny pools of snow
along wind-battered off-ramp —
tired gas station
among the rows of corn stalks —
I count each gust, each bluster
-
Day 2
-
Day 1
every tanka
has already been written
we sing
the rules of counterpoint,
seek to replay our past -
White rose in November blooming
as if you cannot wait for the snow,
as if you open wide to remind usthat November holds both summer
and winter. We learn from youto prepare for any crazy thing,
to carry our burdens lightlyso we might dare to bloom
if given even half a chance. -
House in Bryan Woods
Driveway grooves
into thicket, clearing,beyond first house
now needing repaironto big house
now overgrown by cedarsrooted along its foundation
when no one thoughtbeyond next season or so —
even now, decadeslong beyond imagining
one cannot see their destiny —or supposed they, this
would last. We wheelinto thicket, clearing,
round houses, again. -
In ordinary time
Dust stirs as I walk to your door,
hat by my side.Long pond lies still,
weeds bending, expectant.How many steps like this
in how many galaxies on earthunrecounted? They come, they go,
dust tumbles round footprints,shuffling in and out, as if
deciding what shall be be. -
Visitation
Even the spires of milkweed
bend over in the low tumble
of wind through the prairie,
dry reeds tapping hollow
on ancient gravestones.When I left you here,
the ground was frozen and wet,
with pelting sleet leaving
a pebbled sheet on the grass,
the canopy, the cars.How different it feels
in August now, sun high, grass
grown in as if it had never
been cut into, and reeds
making that lonely ostenato.How absent you are
of the chaos of life, sticky
love that weighs you down
at every leaving,
fills you with doubt,how you are not unbound.
You are no longer tethered
and yet somehow
not untethered either,
me lingering as I do.
Poems from in between 