Forty

 

This is your homestead now,
your land, sown as it is
with seed or salt.

Yours to husband and to harvest,
to till and break and
cause to bloom.

On the barn, the old letters
have faded and are painted over
with your name now.

That time you said when or if
or then has left. There is only
this sunlit afternoon.

Ready?

Just remember that the Earth
always turns toward the morning,

And a gentle rain is
surely on its way.

For Emica on her fortieth birthday

March 5, 2026

Divorce

 

Did you, my friend, revel in your freedom?

Shook loose the halter of matrimony and

bounded into the morning light.

Was it worth the solitude to leave?

A brief shower but no further blooms,

Only the dry crackle of steps in dead leaves.

Were Fall and Winter unexpected?

Or hoped for?

In the pub, each man drinks from his own cup.

The murmur of voices is not a conversation.

To listen to the song is not the same as singing.

Hands that grip the table edge do not touch warm flesh.

Perhaps I am wrong.

Perhaps the walk through the dark streets alone

Was no hardship. The empty bed, the dish in the sink,

No compromise.

We come and go alone, I suppose.

The sea waves crash ashore

unheard, the mountain broods unseen.

February 17, 2026

for Matt, of course.

Karl Hears the Band

 There are crowd sounds in the other room.
As we drink, your boot looks 
right at home on the bar rail
and you smell like 
bourbon and good cigars.

Your hat brim dips 
and that prophetic beard
flashes when you speak.
It is good to see you again, 
to listen as your
stories weave together
classmates, parishioners 
and friends.
We talk about everything 
and nothing.

The crowd roars in the other room; 
they strike the first electric chords.

I say, "Hey, Karl, lets go-
take a look at the band. 
The music has started." 
I say it just like that, my friend, 
just like that.

And an instant later,
you are gone.

Entering the Kindergarten

From now on,
September will always be
the month of new beginnings.
Forget New Year's Day,
your world will tip to the Sun
as the bright days of Summer fade.

All time will be counted to
and from this date.
The endless circle of morning and night
will explode into a year,
then a decade.

Your dreams and your awful fears
will revolve around this season
forever.
Your fresh innocence will be postponed
until the leaves begin to turn.

When tomorrow finally comes,
you will lift your slender wrists
to receive the bracelets of time.

Swing Set

 

Opa gives me uppies
into my pink swing 
ClickClickClick
to the moon
    silly old moon
Grass sky grass sky
grass sky grass sky
My shadow shrinks
and grows  shrinks
and grows shrinks
and grows
    Watch this, Opa
Grass sky grass sky
Grass sky grass sky
my hair in my face
shush shush shush shush
shush shush
    remember dat?
I feel squishy and warm
cozy cozy      like a cloud
like a    marshmallow
Me        love      marshmallows
Eyes heavy   sun warm
Me love to swing
me love    to    swing
me love       me love 
me     love
love. 

The Children's Room

 

The Children's Room at the Kennebunk
Public Library is full of toddlers-
a noisy chaos of glue sticks, scraps of colored
paper, moms, books, stools and low tables,
more upscale than our country library.
The kids seemed more privileged too,
as no doubt they are, bossy
unwilling to give up the wooden train set.
"Well, piss on them", I think and maybe
Bindi heard because she grew very quiet
and her Bluey pants turned dark
and wet.

Scoop up her blushing form and hustle
to the men's room, to the privacy
of the handicapped stall
(too flustered to correct myself and think disabled).
Peel off the wet pants and the Paw Patrol
undies. A futile seat on the toilet but
that stream had moved on. Now what?
Off comes my vest, fleece and
undershirt – transformed into body-warm dress.

Coat and clothes back on but at my age,
I can't leave a toilet unpissed.
Bindi is behind me, angling for a look.
She knows what her vulva is
and the word "penis".
But there will be no anatomy lesson on my watch.
Circling the toilet bowl
to keep my back to her,
"I need some private time. I am being shy."
From behind me, in a gentle voice
without judgement -
"It's just me, Opa.
It's just me."

Timko and Oogala

 

“The future looks bright for Timko and Oogala.”
  
So said the warm, white male voice
on Sunday night -
the Wonderful World in Living Color.
The hearty Eskimo(say Inuit) youngsters 
were now fully prepared to meet 
the rigors of the North
and thrive.
Next week we would thrill to see
Charlie the Cougar. Brute hunter,
cunning but never successful. (No sight of 
doe's blood\gashed throat
on Sunday night).

Timko's grasp is light on the ancient rifle 
in his lap; His gaze far across 
the open land, 10,000 feet or more.
The shell is in the chamber.

Oogala sees open water from her house 
all winter long.
She turns from the frosted window to CNN
and pours.

The last dogs howl for the children  
taken away to school.

Three hundred forty breeds of dog, 
but the snow bears will soon be gone
(like the ermine, the fox and honking geese).

The scientist laughs out loud,

“The earth will survive the 6th extinction, 
but we won't.”

Snow Bear (television) Two-part television show; aired on November 1 and 8, 1970. Directed by Gunther Von Fritsch. A polar bear cub is befriended by Timko, a teenage Eskimo boy, while he is on a year’s self-imposed exile from his community, learning the art of the hunt. The soon grown bear has to be returned to the wilds after it destroys the village’s meager supply of food. Stars Steve Kalcak, Rossman Peetook, Laura Itta. Filmed on location in Point Barrow and other Alaskan sites. Released for schools on 16mm film as The Track of the Giant Snow Bear. https://m.wikidata.org/wiki/Q72928840

My Winter Days

 

Coarse, blunt hairs sprout from the top

of my nose like the salt wind stunted
trees along Somes Sound.

Why they have started growing
out that way is a mystery to me,
another curse of my Winter days.

I make my wife promise that when I
am lost and mindless in a nursing home,
she will come and pluck them

One by one.

December 27, 2021

Penguins: An Anniversary Card

 

It was, of course, the picture that first attracted me; how

one moves away and one stands still. 

Which of us is which, I wonder?

That each day we struggle between the forces of life, green

and bearing up through the snow towards the sun,

and death, a quietude when all energy is expended

and space is the only sound;

That we all stagger between one of those gates

and the other, that is well known.

Some are moving forward and some are standing still. 

Some are waiting silently and some

are anxious to rush to the same conclusion.

To wait with patience upon the other, unmoving or declining,

 is love. 

So is being drawn forward by the hand (or wing)

across the landscape spangled with falling stars.

August 5, 2021

What We See, What We Know, What We Read.

 

If I see the gazelle step lightly thru the high grass,
pause and turn to leap away, I tell the story first
by firelight while the haunches broil.
The sun, the water, the birds in the air,
Mountains to the side and clouds above;
I see only the black eyes of the gazelle in the high grass.

We go down into earth together and the drums echo in the cave.
Here by flame light I sketch my prey alongside the 
bears and great cats in profile, one after the other.
Over there, the aurochs roar and the mammoths thunder – gone now.

Later, much later, I will face the lions and put arrow 
to their breast.  Then others will carve my bearded likeness 
and the cats, sleeping in the garden or chased by chariot. 
Across my muscled knees, the scratches record my glory, 
my name and those of my defeated enemies cast down before me.

The hunter lays aside his atl-atl 
and comes in from the sunlight, 
comes in thru the French doors to sit 
for his portrait on a hobby horse,
ruffles fall away from the sleeve where 
he points his baton West.

We think we can smell blood on his hands.



April 11, 2021
reading “Ways of Seeing” by John Berger

In The Bow

For Robert

Listen, Children, listen.
Quiet the roaring in your breast.
Grief is the privilege of the Living
and tomorrow.
Listen. Listen and hear
the wings whisper round his head
and feel the air move in their wake.

The door of the multiverse stands ajar
and beyond he can see
the radiance of the Tree of Life,
unseen since the closing of the garden gate.

The cells - good and bad - are working
together to help him chose.  Lungs
labor and heart swells slowly as
the doorway draws him near.

But he is like an infant who resists
their birth, rolls and pokes against
an unknown and the star filled world.
Guide and push and offer yourselves as the
great muscles of your body once guided a child.

He will not fail or falter.
He will not fall into the sea and be lost again.
He will not be forgotten.

Self will stand proud in the new land and
he will walk through the trees

down to the shore.

Woodstock, July 2019

What wren? What finch? what dove?
All the deer are stoned on lily blossoms
And the snakes take to the pools
At Opus 40,
Black sticks on the day-glo green.
Heat drives gnats to the shadows and
The pines slowly
                             ooze their
                                              ant trapping
                                                                   sap.

Little blonde heads break the turquoise plane.
The circus balls slowly perambulate the edge.
Ice tinkles; mothers laugh,
Daddydaddy floats regal
among splashing grandchildren,
noodles at head and foot.
The mountains lean in to see.

Seven
           Not three
                           Days of peace and love.

                                                                    for the Armstrongs

Birder

Behold the ortelan!
Caged and blinded from hatchling days
Force fed until your shit is haute cuisine.
Finally, mercifully, drowned in Armagnac
and served to the elite beneath their cap of shame.
Eaten from feet to beak.

You are no eagle, no hawk, no falcon.
At best, you may rise to the status of finches.
Be fast and sharp, like hummingbirds;
Be loud and black and proud like crows.
Be as persistent as woodpecker and
flock together for protection like sparrows.
Be as bright as cardinals and sing like nightingales.

For the birders are on the hunt
for the next innocent bird.

Brown Mouse and Mr. Ghost

i.
Brown Mouse has lost his tail.
At least I think he had a tail,
a long time ago.
He still has his striped shirt-
half green and yellow stripes,  half red and black -
Like a harlequin
or a gondolier.
On his left ear the little beret has
faded from green to dusty grey.

He almost lost his shirt once.
The back is sewn up with crazy
childish Frankenstein stitches.
The faded label on his bottom
says "MADE IN JAPAN",
When that was a thing.
His head tilts a little to the right but
his eyes still look up into yours.

When he spoke to me, which he did;
in a voice like I am speaking to you now,
it was always wise.  He would be
reasonable when the white rabbit-skin cat
only spoke of love.
He was the clever one;
The practical one;
"Let's get up and ask for a drink."
"Let's run to the edge of the yard
and back."

ii
Mr Ghost looked like the rustling of flags in a breeze.
He was tall, as everyone was in those days.
Mr. Ghost spoke to me of
wild things - things I did not understand.
He spoke of the body.
He spoke of fear and vulnerability.
He stood at my back when I peed
To protect me from the monsters.

Brown Mouse and Mr. Ghost ate
lunches of toasted cheese sandwiches
and tomato soup with me
at the little kitchen table
as hazy smokey sunlight
poured down across the floor.
They watched the news in black and white,
And cartoons on Saturday morning.
They rode in the back seat with me
watching the telephone poles go by.
Counting every pole.

III
Their voices,one by one,
Came inside and joined
The throng of priests and tyrants.
Or were lost therein.
When do the toys of youth
Lose the glamour of speech ?

Echos down an empty hall,
Whispers
then the sound of the candle snuffed.

The Christmas Box

I - Gift shop

Shot glasses, snow globes, tee shirts
All in bright disarray.
Celebrate Cape Breton with candles
Post cards, cup and saucer,
Driftwood sculpture and dolls.
Each bears the tiny label
"Made in China".

Further back, the local artist prints, 
Tartan blankets, dish towels, blown glass,
Pewter mussels, soap and shortbread tins.

A side door.  An office? No.
Dusty windows, faint smell of oil,
Port hole window frames 
lean against the walls
Piled with ship's wheels, sail cloth, buoys.

A wooden table down the middle is piled
With hardware pulled from boats like pirate trophies:
Hand tools, pulleys, signs, door knobs,
Cleats, rails, deck-plates, hooks and eyes.
Copper, steel and bronze.

Amid this seaman's hoard, a box 
the size of a pocket.
Brass like his brothers on the table.
Embossed with a delicate princess in profile
And the year- 1914.

II Little Mary

"I want you now to help me to send a Christmas present 
from the whole of the nation
to every sailor afloat and every soldier at the front. 
I am sure that we should all be happier to feel that we had helped to send 
our little token of love and sympathy on Christmas morning, 
something that would be useful and of permanent value, 
and the making of which  may be the means of providing employment
in trades adversely affected by the war. 
Could there be anything more likely to hearten them 
in their struggle than a present received 
straight from home on Christmas Day?"

Little Mary, blithe teenager, wanted to help.
Princess Royal, ready to spend her allowance
for the good of the nation.
How many now at the front? 

Tobacco, cigarettes, candy or spices.
Our friends – France, Russia, Belgium
Servia, Japan, Little Montenegro.
And, of course, Imperium Britannicum.
Christmas greetings from the King and Queen.
Portrait of Princess Mary. Dressed in white, she  looks over her shoulder.

III Empire and Commonwealth

Empire and Commonwealth.
How came this box to Cape Breton?

Soldier in the muddy trench hears 
Football in the no man's land on Christmas Day.
The Welch singing carols across lines.
Did he tuck it in his blouse to keep his tobacco dry?

Or sailor in the great iron heart
Plunging through the sea,
Did he think of breakers on the shores of Cape Breton 
and the lonely Highlands above the cliffs?

"This will be a good thing to remember by, 
when this war is forgotten.”
Puts it up in iron ribs 
above the tool bench - 
For safekeeping.

IV Current contents

One penny – 1918
Georgivs Dei Gra. Brit.Omn:Rex Fid.Def.Ind.Imp

It is said when Russia exiles came to England, they wept when they met His Majesty.
Such was the likeness of these cousins – George and Nicky.

Britannia holds her trident and shield, 
looks to the sea.
Her dominions at her feet.

20 Cents 1919
Regno Italia
War upon war.
The armistice bred revolution, civil war,
Blackshirts in the making.
El Duce considers socialism
but he is drawn to the drama of the right.
Seeds scattered in the trench mud.


Fünf und zehn pfennig, 1912 and 1914.
Worthless in a decade, but for now tobacco und ein bier.
The eagle spreads his wings , Deutches Reich
The crown floats overhead.
Als eine sind wir stark.

Dark round copper
2 Kopecks 1912
The double eagle screams and screams.
For Czar and country, they ran across the open fields.
Exultant, right up to the moment 
when the German machine guns opened up.
Felled like winter wheat.

And the last, the very last.
Metal disk, two holes: one for him 
and one for his country.

ORIN H. LOVELY  PVT.  U.S.A.
2785618.
The wide potato fields between the forest edges, 
of the Cascades hulking in the sky, 
which did he miss more?

The rusted helmet hung in the woodshed gloom.
High up on a nail.
When they left the farm, 
I gathered it up and took it home.
My own war trophy.

The dent in the front?
„He got that pulling a buddy back into a trench.“ the story went.

Maybe.
He survived, anyway.  
Came home.
Bought a farm. 
Got married. 
Raised a family.

Did he ever remember the white flares over no man's land?
Was his sleep disturbed by the chugging of machine gun 
or  thump of Thor's hammer as the artillery walked into their trenches?

V
Somewhere the wind blows across the lea and the flowers move.
The dark sea rises and falls upon itself, one wave and many.
The rain drips from the evergreens and the streams gurgle in the moss.

As it always has.

Prologue: These Things

These things,

An asteroid belt  gracefully circling the sun.

These things each have their poles,

pulse magnetic,

Resonate in liquid nothingness.

These things,

lost along the riverbank.

Trunks and portmanteaus from shipwrecks

or abandoned,

Each painted and numbered

for identification.

These things,

Mothwinged.

Little household gods

that keen and ring always

when the light is quiet.

These things,

embrace the tremulous thought,

the eel that slips

between dark water.

These things,

shells in the surf,

clatter against the shore with every wave.

(The poet is a seashore dweller.)

Hold them.

Full of It

He lays back on the pillow

talking to the cracks in the ceiling,

"Ever wonder what the inside of your nose looks like?"

He rolls over and cranes her neck back for a look.

"Hey, stop it" she says playfully.

"Let me lick your eyeball."

"Oh, why?  Are you hungry?"

"Let me lick it."

She rolls her eyes and his tongue

flickers across her vision.

"What does it taste like?" she says, laughing.

"It tastes like butter."

She snuggles into his chest, 

"You are so full of it."

Full of what? he wonders.

July 26, 2018

image source

Stars

We lie nestled in the morning light
Knee to inner knee, our hands
Clasped over your hip.  You dream
And I study the freckles on your
Shoulder blades.
Galaxies in reverse, dark on light.
Is that the throne of Cassiopeia
Or Ursa Major?
The patterns dissolve
I only see a universe
For us to explore
Together.
I squeeze your sleeping hand.

Why a Crow

Why not her nobler relative, Raven? The all-knowing
Huginn and Muninn - Memory and Thought?
Odin's knowledge source soared now away into the blue.
Or maybe solemn Poe's prophet knocking at the door?
No, nor the Raven god worshipped where the forest drips
into the sea. Certainly not her clown kin, the Blue Jay!

My Mom heard them haggling in the garden,
not scared as they reproached the raggedy man
on sticks. She secretly loved their smart aleck nature,
smiled as she watched them wheel
across the open fields, foraging for treasure.

Crow.
A commoner Corvid,  still . . .
Dinosaur kin. The cleverest of birds.
Complex maker of tools, teacher of her
fledgling kids, creature of long memory.
Clear-eyed, ruthless, robber and collector.

She came to console Uncle Billy,
and with Brooks Hatlen
was set free.

The Gift by William Carlos Williams

As the wise men of old brought gifts
            guided by a star
                      to the humble birthplace

of the god of love,
             the devils
                        as an old print shows
retreated in confusion.

           What could a baby know
                     of gold ornaments
or frankincense and myrrh,
           of priestly robes
                      and devout genuflections?

But the imagination
          knows all stories
                      before they are told
and knows the truth of this one
          past all defection

The rich gifts
          so unsuitable for a child
                      though devoutly proffered,
stood for all that love can bring.

          The men were old
                  how could they know
of a mother's needs
           or a child's
           appetite?

But as they kneeled
           the child was fed.
                      They saw it
and
           gave praise!
   
                     A miracle
had taken place,
           hard gold to love,
a mother's milk!
           before
                      their wondering eyes

The ass brayed
          the cattle lowed.
                     It was their nature.

All men by their nature give praise.
           It is all
                     they can do.

The very devils
           by their flight give praise.
                      What is death,
beside this?

           Nothing.  The wise men
                      came with gifts
and bowed down
           to worship
           this perfection.

30-0-30

I wrote this poem for Emica's 30th birthday.  There are so many reference and mystical symbols (as all good poems should be), including the suites of the Tarot deck and references to one of my favorite poets - William Carlos Williams.  There is also a reference to my favorite Waterboy's song as well.  Friends will recognize the reference to 'stars are poured at your feet' -  go Phi Mu!  The poem is like Emica herself: complex, mysterious, joyful and magical.

Thirty, Oh Thirty, yes! Your apprenticeship

is over and you have your journeyman's card.

Grasp the cudgel and fill the cup, celebrate your

mad journey, study the tracks on the ground,

reflect on the sky until you are gobsmacked by it all,

and stars are poured at your feet.

Leave the Sea at last behind you.

(You can return to the water when Summer comes again.) 

Leave it swaying on its stalk and seek out the River. 

Look for the deer's path along the bank -

the deer and wolf's path as well.  Watch the

river follow its destiny, never more or less than

that way between the rock faces ordained .

The sword cuts and the coin buys,

never more than the subject requires. 

Angled in the rocks, the tiny plant survives,

Thrives in spite of every other ray of light and raindrop's course.

Seek out the headland's bluff - purple and in motion

toward the sky.  Your way now is proven

by the marigolds along the way and by

the sense of place you now possess. 

Range far and wide, but always with a compass

in your heart and good shoes on your feet.

Gather up the roses and press them into wine,

make haste down the rabbit hole, wander under the

tree-whispered moonlight, do all these things without

concern for the simple track, the bird or the salamander,

for the cat's breath on your cheek or the rabbit's claw.

You are full formed now: no tail remains, no gills. 

You are in your final state of change and metamorphosis

(as are all things that live). 

Let no ghosts haunt or ambling thoughts resist.

You are thirty now.

For Emica

03/05/2016

 

Mantis

The bright green armor of the thorax
Is mottled now and autumnal,
The eyes, like pools of ink,
grow dim.
That quick inquisitive look about
is hardly present,
Your head dips and exhausted body splays.
Only the once strong front legs,
Lined with tibial spines like a gladiator’s,
Still grope tentatively and reach out to the branch.

Gone now are the days when you devoured your mates,
When you hunted the spider with impunity and
All lesser creatures cowered before your majesty.
Head cocked, eyes bright, your raptorial legs cocked in prayer,
Ready to snatch your prey and draw it to your waiting mandibles,
Unrelenting devourer of the still living.

The arc of life is short and painted in a season.
I look in your eyes and see my own demise,
See time take power and purpose from us both.
Gone now into the ground of the lost past,
Sweet dreams of passion at the edge of the field,
Surfeit of pleasures now dusty with memory,
Youth behind and the abyss before.

There is no tenderness in this season for either of us,
Little solace in the children we have borne, or
The food we have consumed or bonds we made.
The arc closes and dusk comes in
When the air clicks with the promise of frost
And the end of Summer days.

September 24, 2016

Image Source