Rivers
There’s a river in my
November sky—
a river of fathomless blue
sweeping between
ice-crusted snowdrift clouds
floating high
over bare-armed trees
and bare-armed people.
My teeth crunch an apple
my feet crunch leaves as
Monday’s snow melts into
tiny sidewalk rivelets.
A boy zigzags the lawn
hunting acorns he trades
for tired smiles from his mother.
Love flows like a river, unstopping.
Why wait?
Why wait for inspiration to appear,
surging onto your page like a whitecap
gliding over the sand
salty, foaming with words
Why wait, when outside the wind sings
naked trees wave their long arms,
even their sturdy trunks sway, drunken
Why wait, when the clouds above
skate across the cold sky
like children sliding on ice
Why wait, when the house seems to have weighed anchor,
rocking with every gust, creaking like an old boat
setting off on a choppy uncharted sea
So pleased to have my poem, Pennsylvania, published at Turk’s Head Review.
Aftermath
I feel like a river
so full I might overflow my banks
for years, so dry, now I am water, falling—
falling like the ginkgo leaves,
that lie scattered like footprints on the sidewalk,
so rain-slicker yellow, they are wet, oh
I had such a fever, once
I was empty as an old Halloween pumpkin,
scraped, drying, dry inside,
dying I was dying, I was lying
on my back, floating on the current
so hot the water sizzled when it touched my skin
I floated so long
hypnotized by love and the sky and
the fever’s fire
Once I was a wound, bleeding
Now I am welling up vivid as blood—
maybe I could be that red rose, blooming,
trembling in November’s
sharp teeth
the start of a poem:
driving home from Indiana
sunset blazing an orange goodbye
contrails crisscrossing the deepening sky
speeding through billows of dust
from the seed corn being processed
by harvesters crawling the darkening fields
Pendleton, Eden, Maxwell, tiny towns
brick houses, bonfires blazing in backyards,
November leaves burning, summer burning
up ahead, a great pyramid of golden kernels,
oh, how they glow, under sodium vapor lamps
such a harvest, this year, such a farewell
Vibrations
I read today that
four hundred forty beats per second
equals the note called “A”
I thought of you, of resonance,
of tiny ear bones trembling with words
of the resounding delight of being heard
How the word ‘vibrant’
rings like a bell of poured molten
bronze, cast
cast like a spell, pure magic
syllables sometimes sing like plucked strings
music of minds in tune
I am a leaf, falling,
surrendering,
I will not cling,
like a mitten on a clip—
No, I’ll flutter like a bird
float through this
dizzy blue forever
fall freely
letting go, or
winter will never come
and if winter never comes
spring will never bloom
I am a leaf, falling.
My poor feet cannot stop
bewitched, like in a fairytale, cursed:
they cannot stop, so I walk and walk and walk
as if my head is no longer in charge
as if my heart might burst from
beating and beating and beating
This golden hour: cresting the hill
breathing molten light and
air electric between twin storms
air so clear it crackles in my lungs
Was I sleeping too long?
Where am I?
A wolf’s dogging my footsteps,
I hear him, throaty and relentless
breathing and breathing and breathing
maybe I’ve wandered into another realm?
Even my shadow, once so faithful, has turned away
nothing is the same anymore.
Awash in gold, in crimson, lost
October whispers my name — softly sings it,
sleepily dreams it
Alas, winter spins her frosty lace
warm-cool shivers feather my spine—
amber-frozen forever
Our sighs paisley the morning air now
October slips, pink-cheeked. Slides headlong
through slick leaves: damp, brown— fallen, down
You say, and I begin again.
The beginning, always my favorite part
sweet on my tongue, fleeting
But I am ever hopeful
digging now for middles and ends
that are deeper and darker
And boiling with life, like the depths
of a sea where lampreys
sway like seaweed, and dance
In the current and swallow
the silvery trout who swims too deep—
you might say the trout dies
Or you might say they become one?
There is no ending, is there?
It’s all a loop, this story—
It’s as endless as the sea evaporating
graying blue skies, falling again, rain, rain
pocking the choppy waves
Feel the spray on your face, wet as
the spit in your mouth, the blood in your veins
salty as the tears brimming
Below the surface, unshed, underneath
Tell me please, what really separates above from below?
If I dive in, will you swallow me whole?
eeo 