Today a child tossed a white stone
into green water. As it sank,
it turned pale green, then darker
green until I could no longer
pick it out from the green
of the depths. At that instant,
it disappeared forever.
But you and I know better.
We cannot deny its presence,
its truthfulness. We mark
where it disappeared, recollect
it with precision and dreams,
speak of it as if it is
in our hands this moment.
Persuade others.
What I always wonder
in a place like this
is how many people
have walked this ridge
before, over how many
centuries and what
have they thought
looking down, across,
overhead into the trees,
towards each other?
What, that is different
from my crowded thoughts
right now?
Where are you, earth?
Someday, I will find
a fresh ridge,
virgin to human foot,
and my thoughts
will surprise you,
being discoveries
dug up from deep
inside your own flesh.
We will learn
from each other
as the long-lost
friends we are,
uninterrupted by
the swirl of voices
that history
pours upon us.
Muscles of stone hold fast
one on top of another,
watch time slip by in tiny
packages, endless streams
pouring forward, memory perfect.
When did this corner round off?
How did this carving waste away?
You needn’t ask; it is known.
Rough-hew blocks exhale their
millennial sighs, add rhythm
to time, note each breeze with
single-pointed attention, your subtle
body, each finger running over,
each spray of graffiti, each drenching
off, each passerby humming.
Observances pile high, dribble into
crevices. Each sun-baked afternoon,
each drunken sky, each note of joy
pouring from eateries, each
starry night over the river.
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Inspired by a number of things running together, including this lovely work by Jennifer Knoblock, We’ll Call it Decluttering.
specks of rain tap
on dark window;
tree branch lit
by streetlight swaying
we rest on shoulders
of night breeze, hemming,
hawing through hours,
wet air, open window
ego pulls this way,
that; shadows rock up,
down walls; ever stirs
our little pot of storm —
shame, pride, joy,
disappointment, shame,
pride, joy, tap, breeze,
disappointment, dark,
wet, shame, haw — soul
mixed into night, hem,
repeat; shadows rock up,
down walls, ever stirring
I sat here at this table many years ago.
The door was on State then, not Chicago;
three shops sold coffee here since.
On Tuesday evenings, a homeless man muttered
to himself at the window, staring
into his coffee, while I ran through
course notes at the next table, coughing
on his stench, not knowing which night
might be my last, not even aware that last
would come. Papers to grade, translations
from the Greek, my first child stretching
my belly and sweater, pressing forward.
Now all I can do is wonder, search the room
for something constant to tie me back;
men muttering by the window. As I study
the seams along the floor, the heavy
outside air holds twenty years ago
and today in a single, paused sigh,
ponders the verses it spares,
deeding them to me to unravel, in time.
Abandoned farmhouse,
greying outbuildings.
Our old elm on the corner
that died last year
stood through the winter
to remind us of its broad
generous shade, kind relief
now removed. Empty sky.
Time unwinds, pulls me
back to your year as sapling
in crowded woods before
this town, this house.
Our kinship holds, deeper need,
as a certain kind of breath.
I bend here on your stump
flattened to the ground.
We re-entwine, vine together.
You remind me, I carry you.
You hold me, I rest upon you.
You become me, I become you.
Poems from in between 