Eclipse

Last night, a lunar eclipse
Three fists above the horizon
Hazy moonlight washed across
The snow cloaked yard

Two does were bedded down
Dark humps again the pale snow
Motionless save when one
Twitched an ear

This morning
No sign of their passing
But a pile of black scat
On the pristine snow

Memories

I could live, myself alone,
With the memories rattling around
In my head
Like sharp-colored marbles
In a colander
Spilling over to batter and bounce
In the bright stainless steel sink
For me alone, the memories
Have texture and form and scent
Color, resonance.
I cannot draw them up
For anyone else.
There are too many, too sad.
I embarrass myself even
As a few scroll by
Replete with unrequited love
Lost ambition, jaded hope.

In this promise though
Of the last third of my life
Three score and ten as the psalmist noted
I am reminded of two things
That cannot be undone save by God alone

That, one, I am loved by her
With eyes so bright that each glance
Makes me yearn toward spring
And new things and warmth and soft air
Stirring in the towering maple.

And, two, that I am bound to cross
That silver river one day
Where, on the far shore, dim now,
my Savior waits for me
Whose visage I cannot imagine
With this mortal flesh,
And crowded all around Him,
The saints in numbers unimaginable
Where there is respite
From that sadness of remembrance
Forever.



The days of our years
are threescore years and ten;
and if by reason of strength
they be fourscore years,
yet is their strength labor and sorrow;
for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.

First Weekend

That first weekend alone
I went through a box of tissues
Lying by the ticking baseboard heater
Staring out the arched windows
of my third floor attic apartment
The wind sucking at the rattling wood frames
And stirring fat snow flakes
To a frantic dervish
In the funnel of amber light
from the street lamps
It would have been easier
Just to let my tears
Soak into the carpet
That first weekend alone

Limbing in Autumn

Mike brings his chainsaws and
His crew, stout Hispanic men with rough hands
And soft smiling faces.
He hoists himself up into the old maple
To bring down a rotten limb,
Already half gone, an long ugly stub
That threatens our power line,
Come the next ice storm.

He ties himself to the limb,
A climber’s harness cinched tight
To his middle aged waist,
And complains from his perch,
As the wind picks up,
‘I’m too old and fat for this’
Leaning into the upturning branch for support.

I imagine myself up there,
Then leave it be,
Vertiginous at the mere thought.

The saw roars, spewing shavings
Like the snow now threatening
And they drift into the black hair of the crew.
The limb falls,
One slice at a time
Rounds clunking the ground
Like mallets on a big bass drum.

Below the crew smile, haul wood,
Assemble several spare saws
Like cutlery at the dinner table.

Thus one winter worry ends,
The tree’s symmetry is restored
And I retreat into the warm den
To wish for snow.

Annelida

rain slips down the ragged curtain of clouds,
patter-slaps on thick madrone leaves
and sprays out onto arid earth,
disappearing between pebbles of gray schist,
tan grains of sand, and brown loam,
Down the hair fine white roots of grass
Where maroon and brown annelida pucker and flex,

blind

and shift the soil aside,
not intending to drown
in this their kingdom
probe and slip against the muck,
up to the surface
to lie in thickets of switch blade grass,
and wonder…

What? What?

Like, Wild Flower, Man

Six A.M.

And gray dawn slipping through
The oaks and maples,
Leafless, reaching toward bleak winter sky,
As they stand poised for spring’s gentle justice.

A dusting of snow
Has settled on the branches.

Crows, one, then another, south to north
Across this frozen tableau,
Raucous voices cutting
Through the snow muffled day.

I will rise, coffee in hand ,
To greet the day
And maybe, bare foot and brash,
Step onto the chilled snowy deck
To say farewell to winter.