Category: Nature
-
March 2017
Slowly, slowly life comes back. Hair-fine roots far below the surface muster a wiggle, a stretch, and stir for us the unseen process of life beginning again. But not every capillary wiggles and stretches. Some just as mysteriously have clogged themselves up (been clogged up?) and no longer bring life back, no longer are alive…
-
Even so
Even as you sit smoking weed in the room I just cleaned and leave your papers and dirty dishes on the desk, not making the bed I just resheeted, there is no amount of missing you that is enough. It goes on and on like the Mississippi flows in constant cycles from mountain top through…
-
Early morning on Lake Shore Drive
maze of brown at the center, trees empty of leaves, row after row stretching to scattered hazel edging the lake, its soft fog settled, tissue-papers, still, grey, jade mist, dull pearl, kingdom come
-
The heart needs good work
All that comes to me now is the prairie, how it is empty to the casual eye, how you walk or see for miles, alone, how you wonder ever why on the absence of your fellow creatures. Will you get another dog? it asks me, or a grandmother, or husband, or son? Do they make…
-
Worth staying for
Dusts of snow edge the earth, uneven lines mark sun-warmed pavers. With under-parts protected, statuary gather new relief, dying grasses open in broad pompons, perennial stalks crisscross into heavy mounds of gold, pine tufts reach out in a first, mourning grace. All else hushes, runs for cover, but our small, neglected garden unfolds, yawns wide…
-
11/20
Earth grieves each November, again finds itself wailing in sorrow, refusing to get out of bed. For its own tears and distresses, the world collapses into itself, spends the month grinding through cold damp, discordant winds, while its resistance slips away into the long lonely meditation that always follows death. ———- From Li Po, “Listening…
Poems from in between 