tangents

solstice

we were watching
falling snow

make soft topography
of drifted leaves

in the white arcades
of the streets

our figures passing
in window glass

there
and not there

when the wind carried
what must be

the carillon of St. Jerome
ringing evensong

from out of one world
and into another

we are breathing
the keen stilettos of the air

when did you lose yourself
so long ago I cannot recall

the psalmody recurring
then sentinel silence

city at dusk

if we could only see
this place

and our memories of it
as two parts

of the same truth
one we've lived

with another
we long to relive

but we moved
through them

one smoke
the other nothingness

 

solstice

if you find a place  
where the sea

is coming  
unconvincingly in

its surface
just darkened by cloud

the flagging tide  
lying breakers softly down

like spreading shadow  
ebb overtaking inflow

sanctified in wordlessness  
wait there

 

funeral

in a chest sitting heat
he lay on the bier

systematic guards
moving clockwork

volley shots
piercing the haze

of the clouds
of mountains

silent mourners
memories

a lake white with light
the lovelorn

bugle sounding taps
locked our throats

 

palm sunday

only on this world  
and not the other

are we fed  
by a light so dim

memories approach
they speak

an augury
from a different world

speak to me  
for once we were strangers

on what world  
is the transcendent imminent

 

the crossing

from a train
scenes pass

behind a layer
of disused or forgotten

whips of Eocene weeds
tumbledown views

of screes of trash of
cars and gray water

a skyline resolves
and passes from view

the cars
in serpentine segue

enter the city
is it not time

a sudden tunnel
some emerge home

 

funeral

by the windbreak  
and fallow field

cars come scaring dust  
in his homeplace

where tall trees  
hang their boughs

and bunchgrass  
clutch unturned earth

on the causeway  
crossing the lake

we saw a fisherman
in a flatbottom boat

see and suddenly
doff his boonie hat

and bow his head  
and our procession passed

 

Centralia, Illinois

in the new light
of morning

gray rain comes
turning torrents skyward

I hear footprints  
she said

fleeting memories
faintly seen

in still water
the storm passing

shadows the color
of ashes of roses

for Marian Roberts
1922-2016

 

death poem

memory is the background mind
one voice calling

awaiting answer
the music of snowfall

one side of the sky
fading orange daylight

clouds mimic the land
the gray ground void

all things
seen and unseen

 

found poem

where does the dawnlight go
what does it carry

 

the messenger

driving a two hand
clench of attention

fireflash the sunlight
machine gunning trees 

and an electric arc
off the chrome dash

the great summation
of this holy work

to carry such news
heartquick the panic

stealing to the back
like a thief’s knife

 

called away

borne away by
ceaseless tides
the recreant moon
steals back the day
from untold shades of night 

fixed on a sun-white sea
no helm for the helmsman
no answer at her rudder
a captainless craft
under sailtorn sky

will she breach
or pass unheeded by
seeking what is not there
or what was there
that forever called away

 

the river in the ocean

1
anapaest in echelon
three martins wheel
circumfluent shadows

round a house on a pole
lichened and askew
discordant in the breeze 

blue black in their chase
they fly and fall fly and fall
then rise anew turning

2
where does our blood haste lead us
must we obey
to what body are we bound

the river or the ocean
the end as of an end
or its seaward dasein

adrift in sleek currents
or pitched by abyssal waves
of such torrents am I circumspect

3
in Ribeirão Preto
the hail threw down
in death an implication

the grandmothers lament
and rake bird bodies
from their frontage

what of our avowal
will we come to water as one
I don’t feel the earth