Remember the spooky French Horn theme in Sergei Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf (Op. 67, a “symphonic tale for children”)? The sound of the wolf brought tears to my eyes and so of coursea few years later, I asked to play the horn. “Musician!”, the grown ups proclaimed, and so I was, finding myself lost … Continue reading Why I Am
Delicate Things
Tiny bird skeletons shatterfrom chinks in the chimney flue. Another trapped bird struggles to find its way free from a matrix of plasterand lathe in clouds of ancient coal dustbehind an iron grate I cannot move.The cats crouch, waiting, and I too, in anxious anticipation. How long can it go on? Worse, what do I … Continue reading Delicate Things
Before
Before the maple leaf -the seed, a treeBefore the lighthouse—lost ships, high seasBefore the airplane -a bicycle, wild birdsBefore maps -animal trails, hunches, vistasBefore a wind that kills—a breeze that stillsBefore the money- the matter of empireBefore empires – cavesBefore heroic profile imprints- handprintsBefore the made and marketed world- a steely skyBefore the coin purse … Continue reading Before
After Days of Rain
After days of rain, blue sky.Time to turn the dirtshed the shirt.Draggin’ the wagon, to therhythm of thewren again.This big dig, sunbeam dream is a bow to the bee,her humble bumbledrone, the musicof a morning.Apple blossom dappled kingdom.Robin, worm, lemon balm, thewinds got calmand for one littleminute in aworld so flawedthe peaceof this patchis a … Continue reading After Days of Rain
The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Everything
The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Everything has started a movement to compel cooks to put their vegetables into boiling water as this kills them quicker than the barbarous method of putting them into the cold and letting the water come to a boil.Lewiston Evening Journal Maine, January 20,1917.A late joiner of the … Continue reading The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Everything
Copenhagen Misses You
The mermaid by the canal is crying. These cobblestones, they’re a hazard, my clogs have yetto break in, so my feethurt. All I want is to sip kaffe with you, watch the rain drip down the windows, lean acrossour warm little table to wipe thecroissant crumb from your cheek. Come back. Come back.
Weird Wisdom
That bird!What’s that bird?We’re partially listeningto our new neighborgo on about the shallowseptic field, when a blastof staccato trills,ruffles the air in a tallsycamore aboveour heads.We stop talking.Listen upward.The neighbor, whosename is Jim, talks loud and the bird talks backlouder still.Every time Jimsets off on a newstream of consciousnessflash flood of factsthe intensity ripples and … Continue reading Weird Wisdom
Ah Grief
Ah griefsaid my friendmy mother’s scuffed black shoeson the back seatwhen I made my wayfrom the hospitalwithout herTo know griefsaid the windis to rattle windowpanestrouble the puddlesof every loss shakethe raftersof your heartKnowing griefsaid the teacupis to spill bitternessand compassionread the leaveswear the stainlike a tattoo…after Alicia Ostriker’s The Blessing of The Old Woman, The … Continue reading Ah Grief
Stranger Things
Uncle Joe had a photographic memory. Things like birth and death dates hung like jewels on the many-branched family tree he tended. In random conversation with those among us still living, people and their dates were important to him as were their places. His mind held a map of world facts & histories, wars … Continue reading Stranger Things
Platonic
Your voice on the page rides ethers strong familiar comforting dear old friend I cherish memory our alleyway bicycle adventures back porch story telling the ache as your family drove down a street I thought meant goodbye Ohio forever. But here’s a photo 50 years hence hip to hip wild-haired on your Napa hillside or … Continue reading Platonic
Early Morning Poems 