Untitled
As my mind wandering with nothing
Recalls having once seen out of reach
A bird cleaving the black shelves and finding
Myself unable to stop it, much less warn,
Then it begins with the emptiness
Of the chair from which I long sit across.
The Art of Growing
You find me in a simple pleasure
Digging my fingers into an orange
And fishing out the slippery seeds,
Putting them in a cup.
Such a simple act, but it’s also art
Carefully performed this morning.
The brilliant sun in the morning
Brings a certain pleasure
To turning the simplistic into art.
I trap its brilliant orange
Rays inside the cup
To share some life with the seeds.
The potential of the seeds
Will be seen some future morning
As I sit with coffee in my cup
And look out to my garden with pleasure
At the growth of a dappled orange
Tree showing me scenes of art.
To others it may not look like art,
But something wonderful grows from seeds
More than just a simple orange.
It’s more than the smell of citrus in the morning,
And more than what comes of the pleasure
Of simply drinking its juice in a cup.
In the garden holding the cup
I begin the ancient art
—Wearing the smile of a simple pleasure—
Of planting the small, hard seeds
In the dewy soil of the morning
In anticipation of an orange.
I ponder all that it means to be orange;
Though it could be juice in a cup,
Or the color of the sun in the morning,
One mostly appreciates the art
In the lesson from the seeds.
That is, to be patient for pleasure.
Though it’s not just art
Giving life to the seeds,
But some greater pleasure.
The Duet
Two in time play steady and cool
Winding notes together on spool
On a late evening late in the autumn,
Autumn rain gathered in pools.
They play fast and daring,
Both giving, both taking, both sharing,
But the gloss on the keys
From the shimmering speed starts wearing
Down to the decadent bone.
Too rough and the moiety yells,
And then what is felt?
Each chord and each note
Discordantly swelled,
Both players playing for broke
The others’ notes.
Distracted from playing
Their notes become grating,
Confused and dismaying
As keys too big to shriek
Beneath the weight of kitten feet
Under clambering fingers are straining.
When the song and the chair,
The players, the pair,
Are held equal in share
The music comes back
In its flowery track,
And all will be right
And nothing will lack.
Walk and Sing
Sing if you find yourself thinking
“I’d as lief sing as not.”
Walk if you find yourself
Wanting to,
And find some road
Shaded in undergrowth
You never would have sought.
Sacrifice
When the burning ends the ravaged land sends
boys in coffins to their mothers sobbing.
Thorns of pride clutch a mother’s side and she
prays a lost prayer.
Look to the field where you will see no yield.
The greedy maws that bite and gnaw will rest
when all the blood drains through the mud and drowns
the buried boys.
Sonnet 1 - Under Heaven’s Eye
What art we, under heaven’s eye?
Our youthful bodies slowly wither,
And if our fathers’ counsel misbeget,
Harsher does our nature follow.
And though we ‘oft do pass in quiet,
Reposed in the fetching soil,
Our dead do roll inside their graves,
Kept awake by Thunder’s coil.
If not for mercy be made pure,
Why for one’s own sake endure
The fruitless yoke, this silly pantomime—
A chasing after wind?
‘Cause the blameless hands that our blame bore,
They taketh, yet they giveth more.
The Queen of Night
Her face withdrawn
Before the rite,
Unfurls her gown
The Queen of Night
Once per annum
Her petals loom
From pallid stem
And phantom bloom
The other creatures
Under heaven
Hold no prejudice
To loving this,
But our rulers
In their courts,
Much they covet
Man’s support
And if man’s troth
Prove sophistry,
They would live
In poverty
But after thrones
She does not lust
Because kings’ robes
Return to dust
The moon conceals
Its starry light
And now must kneel
The Queen of Night
Gypsies
A gypsy moth dwells in my cellar
With dusty brown wings. He flies in circles,
Eating flour, longing for
That time of day when sunlight wanes
So he can drink from the light
Of my heady lamp shade.
The last flyer of a thousand lives,
Born of a drifting matron’s fecund hive,
During twilight hours flutters amid
The leaves of bowing willow trees
All tangled up in clever, mingled knots.
Months ago, his mothy brother,
Eating of the hardwood leaves
And cherry trees,
Torpid as he hovered,
Fell crashing from a sudden weight,
Collapsing from his winged state.
His many cousins cloyed themselves
With aspen leaves and hawthorn trees,
Leaving trails of insect sisters
Choking on the surfeit.
The gypsies know
No joy in drought or grace in want.
Now extinct, their silty bodies
Crumbled under blight,
Plighted to their stomachs.
Of that kind these moths ate up,
I too, sometimes, consume too much.
In this we’re like; so enamored with our pleasures
That we disregard all measures,
Recognizing bitterly that which comes of glut.
Untitled
Winter’s far too cold for me
Even by a fire.
And Spring is still too wet for me
Even when it’s dryer.
And Summer’s lovely,
With all the sparrows flying,
But nature’s most alive in Autumn
Even though it’s dying.
Sonnet 2 - How Foolish am I?
How foolish am I? My unwise words fell
On ripe ears, injuring the listeners,
As nighttime doth silence the songbirds’ bells,
Suppressing the tender petitioners.
But judge me not, you hypocrite wise men,
For you entered here babes of idle speech.
In your words even more do you pretend
To trespass not, against trespassing preach.
But this is good, methinks it to be so,
That my uplifting words will always stay
In pages that contain their lasting glow,
And shine among the seasons’ blended shades.
Therefore, let us never cease in thinking,
Lest we quit from Wisdom’s cup our drinking.
Shadow
An ancient shade dwells in the sky,
And waves his rags at passersby.
His wisdom doth exceed the now,
Though he would it were of thee.
Our human folly plagues us thus,
Betraying thee, along with me.
We track our years about the sun,
And pine in vain our years agree.
But by the daily glow of night,
The specter sees with eyes alight,
Turns away the world bizarre,
And lays his wares among the stars.
Tomorrow’s sun today may set
Against our dusky curtains’;
Every scene a troubled mess—
The final act uncertain.
Sonnet 3 - Beware the noisy caller in the streets!
Beware the noisy caller in the streets!
He’s a prideful courtier whose foul breath
Announces only unsound prophecies,
Dealing unto you underhanded death.
His enticing words corrupt our calling,
Which centuries ago observed by most,
Now by many’s disregarded, falling
Like haughty spirits fall behind a boast.
In his eyes we see that which we cherish,
That which we worship, but soon shall perish.
Like parasites we crave earthborn flavors,
But how swiftly fleeting’s that fair savor?
Make haste! Attune your ears to chords above,
And bind your hearts to that abiding love.
Untitled
I wandered through my mother’s garden,
Not to think,
Just to find her favorite flowers
Blessed by many summer showers.
First, the climbing roses, perched upon the arbor
Beckoned me
As if their fairness my witness
Was overdue,
So I afforded warm regards.
Next, I saw the lilac bush
Whose petals blurred together
In comely, violet bulbs.
Then her daisies caught my eye,
Home to honeybees and butterflies
Drinking from
Canary cups,
Frilled in snow-white raiment.
And the orchids’ shades are decadent,
And their voices redolent,
But no tongue among their choir
Could label me a liar,
If of their songs
I said I’d never tire.
The orchids’ beauty made me jealous
Until I saw the trellis
And the ivy woven through it.
But at the edge of her garden,
I saw a vacant spot,
With a rake and spade,
And earthworms crawling on the blade
Halfway hidden in the plot.
And this spot was my favorite.
Perhaps my mother’s, too.
Because what would soon grow here,
Nobody knew.
Cycle
In the tumult of night far from morning
When things move with obscure warning
And as fast and heavy as june rain
Pouring from the dark sky plane
Sleeping inside the family rests
Unaware of the nocturnal guests
Running and resting in the shade
Soon in daytime cadence
Critters move with hurried patience
Through the neighbor’s sunlit garden
And when the sun hangs low at the
End of each day the little creatures
Come out and play once more
In the balmy night heat
Orca
When a captain, rich in years,
Rough in palm, and gray in beard
Charts his course and sets his mast,
He doesn’t turnabout
And look upon his cozy home,
His hearth, and all he holds as dear.
That’s not where he is going.
Surely as a blue sky token,
The bow’s focus
Kept unbroken,
He’ll agitate the busy fish below.
And if something awful should occur,
Alone at sea the master waits.
He may shed a welcomed tear.
Though all he knows on land is dear,
He’d rather drown to death
Out here,
Sinking in his sepulcher.
And surely as an azure token,
There’s no forgiveness in the ocean!
She swallowed the captain,
Brackish beard, glassy compass and all,
But returned the vessel ashore—
Together in fractions.
The Sleeping Kingdom
Entering the ashen world,
The sleeping kingdom:
I see branches fixed in their jest
Like marionettes
With frozen limbs.
The gray in the air
Hangs like geese
From taut rope.
And there’s a creek
That winds, pooling
In spots where
I can peek to the bottom
And see still leaves blanket the mud.
Shall I cast a rock in the pool and ripple?
Walking on,
How many shades of sickly
Brown there are!
All modest
In this older age
That idles for a day
Then turns
From its tired self.
Godspeed
Sitting at a cluttered kitchen table,
I spin a pipe between my thumb
And index finger, as I did this afternoon,
This morning and last night.
This action is mechanical,
Like a bird in the yard finding food,
Twitching and picking seeds,
Twitching—fearful of hawks.
A nuanced thought occurs
Of canvas sails like elephant ears
Cutting through the sea, or perhaps
Of the sand drift found in every hazel eye.
It scatters in a plume of tasteless smoke,
Replaced with some stale cogitation
Of the arrival of another morning
Rightfully discouraging sleep.
Each item on the table,
Though really very dull,
Draws an artificial fascination
As I reorganize it.
My eyes move fast and my hands
Keep up. But this, too, like the bird
Finding food and the spinning of the pipe stem
Between my fingers, is mechanical, not elegant.
The day’s design is exploiting these
Precious hours before my hands and eyes
Grow heavy and slow and I'm left
Making bricks without straw.