As I ride the rails through Italy,
inspiration of unnumbered front yards,
the train seems to pummel rather
through the back door of Indiana —
half-mowed fields, tossed aside tires,
lean-tos stuffed with assorted buckets,
roofs ready for ruin —
all tucked away in secret backways.
We turn our backs
to make things disappear.
We hope that graffiti once dried
no longer carries the stain
of trespass.
-
The secret of the garden
-
The rain has come
At long last, a celebration pours from the sky
and cool air floats over our home.
All flowers, each tree, every blade of grass
sighs in relief and joy
as if a hunger march has just ended
on their last breath.
Blue jays, titmice, crows, even hawks,
stay out to play, winds and all.
And this evening, after the water has softened
the hard cracks of the soil,
drooping branches
will be coaxed back to life.
The great trees will restore their accounts
and then tend to all the small things
who climb over and through them
and who have but tiny wells to feed.
All take their fill under moonlight
as they can
before the next long tomorrow comes,
with whatever it brings. -
Prayers from my mother
All the Marys in the world
can not save me from myself. So it seems.
I hear my mother shouting,
One step at a time! Don't run in the house!
or some such admonition
against gracelessness,
and all the Marys chorus her
as if female chaos
is the only cardinal sin worth fretting over.
Each night, I pray for grace,
and each day, they chant the same.
One step at a time! Don't run in the house!
But at this late stage of all my long years
and with all the world has shown itself to be
to every witness available,
it seems time at long last
for all the Marys in the world to turn their worries
to the endless sins and skinned knees the Earth round,
and to let me deal silently and, alas,
alone with mine. -
The outcrop
Lonely wind
breathes across the edge of land.
Its inhale,
its exhale
sighs as it slides over the curves of boulders.
The only words
day upon day
are the wind skimming, curling,
whispering its truths
to its old friend. -
The tree dreams perhaps
How do you bear it
year after year —
no ability to run away,
only to accept or deny, but never to act?
The weather pours down upon you
sometimes kind and nourishing,
sometimes fierce and unyielding.
Today the snow stiffens
the coat of frozen rain from yesterday.
Your branches hang pendulous
down your sides,
each needle holding its own
strand of snow-ice.
I am uncertain
whether to admire your new garment
or pity you
wearing new shoes that feel like cardboard.
How I wish I could free you --
climb each branch,
shake it free
do for you what you dream of for yourself.
Put aside lack of action,
shake off vulnerability,
teach you what that feels like
to move as you wish
even if only for one day. -
An exercise
Stones are easy to stack
when they have been split and sanded.
The challenge is to balance uneven ones,
those shaped by nature’s whims,
or those left to their own devices.
Like feral children bent on revolt,
they are intent on making their own order
and demand
we sit down, lean back
and watch how it is really done.
Poems from in between 