Wednesday, November 6, 2024
Monday, September 23, 2024
A Halloween Poem
What Skeletons Think
Who knows what skeletons think
when disburdened of the dull meat
we pack on them all our lives?
The painted Halloween figure
we’ve hung on a tree to honor
the pagan point of view says
nothing of the real thing clacking
and clattering in our cruelest dreams.
I often feel my bones suffer
the bulk that strains the ligaments
that knit the construction together.
The bones themselves remain aloof
from the usual daily sufferings.
Although they’re not immortal
they must know that they’ll linger
well after the beef and fat decay.
They‘ll weather like pure ivory,
attaining a dainty shade of gray
that illuminates the darkest nights
for those who know how to look.
When I learn what they think I’ll sigh
with self-recognition based
in the most primal of matter,
all spiritual rumors effaced.
Tuesday, June 18, 2024
Still Tragic After All These Years
The river behind the library
looks bottomless. Black current
smooths along, The bodies
of naked drowned teenagers
rarely surface to look around
and regret the world they left.
More often, a big limb torn
from a dying oak upstream
tumbles over the weir and prods
the brush as it slips toward Antrim.
a dozen miles north. No one
can name those washed away
in the hurricane before the war.
No one remembers the railroad
that trestled across at an angle,
but the footers remain in place.
I lean on a stone wall and watch
for the limber and lanky children
who exposed their gleaming puberty
only for the river to mock them.
All this happened so long ago
that the river has cleansed itself
by abrading on its stony bed,
leaving only me to blame.
Wednesday, April 10, 2024
Moose Brook Brimming
Moose Brook stumbles over rocks
exposed by its gusts of erosion.
We gaze at the reckless flow
caused by the warping of spacetime.
Einstein knew a thing or two
the way we know angels don’t exist
yet exert massive influence.
The brook is headstrong with melt.
No angels, but wanton forces
prod and mock the sudsing current,
accounting for its outraged look.
If we could flow with such power
we’d smooth ourselves into success,
both worldly and the other kind.
The brook tolerates and even
thrives on a rough geometry
that could easily break our bones.
Maybe we also would thrive
if thaw bulked our modest egos
the way it has bulked Moose Brook,
roaring with unfiltered lust.
Thursday, February 22, 2024
Elegy on Ice
Parked beside the frozen lake
we munch blueberry muffins
and slurp our dark roast coffee.
The plain sheet of lake regards
the sky with something like worship
but lacking that subservience.
Such broad dimensions regret
nothing, rooted in creation
that continues to self-create.
No ice fishing, no snowmobiles,
nothing but an unwritten text.
Maybe the ice isn’t thick enough
to brace the wooden bobhouses
that used to pepper the scene
on the boldest winter mornings.
I wish we could fold up the lake
and an equal expanse of sky
and bring them home to install
in our back yard. Then we’d enjoy
this expanse until it thawed
and wept into the water table
where our deepest thoughts deploy.