Day closes
in wandering chatter
losing itself
in waves
edging our
pebbled shore;
stones skitter
over the surface,
lead trails
to the horizon —
fading circles
on yellow water
-
Fourteen months
It has been fourteen months since I began this blog. It seems like a suitably odd time to look back and take stock. Below are links to fourteen poems written during this period that received a lot of response from readers or that I particularly like myself. There is one for each month. I hope you enjoy them.
Thanks for reading, following, and providing your feedback to me. We all have packed schedules and it means a great deal to me that you take some time from yours for this little blog.
April: Three haiku from a rain forest
May: Rainy drive
June: Thoughts on visiting my grandfather’s grave
July: Loving the storms that sway her
August: End of season
September: Daily practice
October: One
November: Book of changes, i
December: Another poem about a rose
January: On reading “Hearing a Flute on a Spring Night …”
February: Jacksonville, Illinois
March: Twin waters
April: Haunted
May: Geraniums (Had to end with this one, as I purchased my annual geraniums for the front porch this afternoon and got a good whiff of that sharp aroma. Can’t someone breed a good-smelling geranium?!) -
This foggy rain
Standing in this foggy rain,
it is reasonable, no, expected,
to mark a little obscure,so let me begin to explain
why poetry would have no need
to be written if weall stood here right now
in this foggy rain, cold
dampness seeping through,its heavy cedar and pine
its drizzling down the world
our not seeing pastthat first hemlock, hanging
dark in this foggy rain,
stillness clawing the birch -
The sea, my sea
The sea does not love me
nor does it love me not
it just pays no mind
as it swells and moans
pregnant with stories
it cannot, dares not,
wills not to speakThe sea does not note
that I am here
nor does it note me not,
its massive expanse
absorbed in thoughts
it cannot, dares not,
wills not to speakThe sea, my sea —
I have so much to tell you
so much to yield
yet you roll and roll
waves following
patterns and patterns
big, burly,
mute, contentedYou do not know me
nor do you know me not
you will not to listen
nor will to listen not
yet you steal away the underside
that I cannot, dare not,
will not to speak -
Winter in Frenchtown
If you have visited only in the summer,
the weight of snowfall on this strip between
the big and little lakes must surprise you.Winter here makes summer seem impossible —
children running down dunes with nothing
but swimsuits, beach towels tied like a capes,tiny sails on the horizon, or closer,
Sunfishes capsizing into clear, open water —
all that artfulness cannot fit on the sameplot now wearing its giant white ’do not disturb!’
’keep out!’ ’enter at your own risk!’ sign
blanketing every inch and out into the beyond.The big lake mills next summer’s dunes,
redrawing sandbars, ice and sand mixing
together, mini glaciers, unstable, fraught;forest floors, the most ancient of dunes, shift,
irregular, with fallen branches blocking paths,
snow reaching your hip without warning.It needs these months, cold, alone, to gather strength
for two months of unsuppressed joy, a recluse
coming out as the drum major at homecoming.But it does better, is more true, here, wound up
upon itself, shivering under its blanket, nurturing
its delicate roots and seeds, sand and pebbles,taking care, learning its own mind, plodding through
its course, working it out. It is on these terms,
from these terms, that summer opens its doors.
Poems from in between 