I float, I float upon a lake
I breathe, the only sound I make
I pray my earthly wiles forsake
That may dream myself awake
-
There’s a rhythm to the ice
That’s sent in by the tide
A song befuddled by a beat
Complex – is cast aside
The music hides within a wall
Cast up upon the shores
By northeast storms – carcophanies
Of shouts and cries and roars
The sun – still low at mid day tries
To warm the iron ledge
Ice has balanced nervously
Soothing drops along the edge
Like flint upon the western shore
The maestro raised his bow
Hardens rivulets like teeth
The Wolf Moons howl is long and low
-
How comforting to a simple life-
An orange handled paring knife
Performs its root and ritual slice
The blossom end a sacrifice
Peels back the layers – smooth like years
Producing false but salty tears
So pleasing in its symmetry
The onion is simplicity
The comfort of a simple chore
Repeated many times before.
An orange handled shovel sits
Beside wet boots as mittens drip
On registers steam hisses as
The porch light favors chiseled paths
The paper boy will trudge to bring
The evening news – a sovereign thing
When night time comes at four o’clock
And coffee’s in a turquoise up.
-
The county plow had done its job
Before the sun had shown
It scraped its blade and bared the road
Through drifts which winds had blown
Banking-bordered edges where
Untouched – the fields remain
An empty, silent battlefield
Snow white upon the plain
To the east the pines and cedars
Seem much closer, hunkered down
Their shoulders touched – arms interlock
Determined – battle-gowned
The ancient orchard leaned upon
The farmer’s southern granite wall
Limbs aching hands grasping, clawing
As dead soldiers where they fall
The vanquished army had fled westward
Cloaked in rising, thick sea smoke
Claimed their dead and armaments
Their wounded cursed from battered boats
I walked the smooth road at the north
‘Till cold forced me – homeward bound
It crept and touched my finger tips
While frost- like blood – seeped deep into the ground
-
How high is blue ? How deep is green ?
As high as forever – as deep always
Just beyond our reach and just below our being
The moon can reach above the clouds and below the waves
And answer the questions of children
Others may plead and ask again
“Why do you need to know ?”
Do you want to plot a path to where untold
The play’s full story will unfold?
Only fools and children conquesr fear
By asking stars and moon as if they’re near.
‘/’
-
The days are feeling thin and fine
The weight of years
The crush of time
Compressed as if they were to be
Layers sedimentary
Its regular ascent – decline
Delineated marks refine
Life’s alternating ebbs and flows
Its periodic highs and lows
‘Till over eons metamorphosized
A perfect skeleton fossilized
Which by a lucky cleft revealed
A life and time becomes unsealed
Alabaster Cat and Other Poems 