“Let me not fail to praise
these veiled and layered realms.”
— “The Arms of the World”
Sitting in Lawn Chairs After a Complicated Day
Tonight's moon is a slim perfection
a dangle of silver sliding across the world as it is.
Each tree below rustles a story
reaching for heaven in its own way.
Here in the back yard
our truths are rough as bark
each one perfect as the incomplete moon.
With so much we cannot see
who am I to ask you to be anything more
than who you are?
There is no one you need to be for me.
No one you need to be
for me.
Potato Man
When we were poor,
you stole a potato from the co-op
and made it seem funny,
flourishing it from your pocket
like a magician.
On nights you couldn’t sleep
you swam across the darkened lake
alone, or rode a bicycle without brakes
down the alley’s graveled slope
past the rejected cats
out under the collapsing moon.
This daring made good stories
and we told more and more,
some of them made up,
each one true.
How necessary it was
to be together, to hide from grief
with one another. We gave everything
freely into each other’s hands
so that ours could again
be empty.
Just To Be Alive
Considering Michelangelo’s “The Creation of Adam.”
The finger of Adam does not reach that of God,
a gap that has unsettled us for centuries,
impatient as we are for resolution.
But Adam, newly made, lingers
in the gap. No rush.
It’s as if he already knows
some intervals of stillness
are their own destination.
Like the pause taken at dusk
to bear witness
to the tinder of sky catching flame.
Or the moment before a first kiss
that suspends two lovers
in the bliss of possibility.
No wonder Adam seems to lounge
while God makes all the effort.
There’s trouble enough ahead
and so much promise
in the here and now,
when nothing is known for certain
except the shock of pleasure
just to be alive.
Dream Cradle
Dream Cradle is one of 34 poems from my first two books included in Words to Warm the Silences, an audiobook read by me and embellished with piano, flute, and voice.
What if the Forest Floor
“And what if / In your dream / You went to heaven / And there plucked a strange and beautiful flower”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
What if
the forest floor
papered now
with leaves
at season’s end
is akin
to this age
you are
which is all ages
you have been
and all wisdoms
therefrom?
And what if
it can only be
now
that you find
in the loam
among the tumble
of leaf mulch
and red berries
a strange and beautiful flower
you’ve never
before seen
and know it
as yourself?