no rhythm
no long, yearning stanzas
no swinging scythe
evening hued grasses
a hurried social hour
a stratagem
a standing on laurels
when perhaps resting
would make more sense
better still
tossing them away
no hidden beauty to unlock
by stripping back
aching facts of labor
but something warm
beats under all,
wordless against words
in the morning is a word
and from that word
spins heavens and hells,
matters of all days
up into earthly purgatory
and on
no sound fuller than the wind
tossing leaves up and over
and against our window screen
as we lie here,
breeze smoothing our shoulders
retreating, surrendering
at long last
little in this dry day
draws any wealth from my thoughts —
hope and wish leave me empty-handed;
instead it is the night sky
with its low hanging, chattering moon,
stars deeper than oceans,
tap, tap, tapping on my mind
to ask for my attention,
nudging it to stir and blossom
O wondrous, wondrous new —
stone pressed from green blue,
red, gray white fragments
appear richer in the sun
and water, cool in my palm
as I wipe sand away, study
your shape, your rough edges
now smooth, test your weight,
wonder of your old, old start,
if there was one at all
or if you have always been
just as you are now
in my hand, in this hand
down michigan avenue
to escape into the wild,
to refresh in a kind of feral opening,
to stroll past the nature of things,
to take in Darwinian oddities
unmatched in the deepest forest
shops, tourists, taxis, flower pots,
stop lights
where a shoreline used to wave
and flood and turn and curl
civilizing the piles of sand
into something steady, strong
allowing grasses and shrubs
and birches and oaks
to dig in their heels to make a prairie
each stage making room for more
unexpected
down michigan avenue now
and then to turn right,
away, past the Episcopal Commons,
under the pounding of church bells
the flight of terrible angels
striving in the wind
holding fast in bronze
sand seeping up, ruddy wings
unfurling
Poems from in between 