The first time I saw St. Peter’s
magnificent marble and lack of time-
pieces, I dismayed my travel
partner with an obvious observation;
a trifling truism: that it reminded me of a casino
welcoming the hopeful riff-raff
“Interval 213,” “Étude 46,” and “Étude 76”
reaching across, hand into the blackberry bush,
a walk from where we were down to the sea,
a small bay, of pebbles & the incoming swell of the water,
listening for the rhythm, as if it might be the key to writing
“Big Bang,” “Mother Tongue,” and “Rarity”
How can something
come out of nothing,
let alone the universe?
But that is what contemporary
theory of cosmology proclaims—
“Shaped,” “Relay,” and “Speechless”
Seeing blurred writing
on an abstract painting
brings me right back
to begging you to teach me
to read before I went to school
“Your Clothes in Tatters,” “Into the Slow Air,” and “Current or Currently”
…skyward, lying on our backs listening for rainfall,
lying, we the ones of loitering, of settling into the longing for dreams to overtake us,
asking if anything could overtake us,
this overwhelming desire, this yearning for…
“I Used to Love Christmas Movies…,” “Friday Morning 2:00 am,” and “Chasing History”
I have been watching White Christmas for 65 years so
tonight, the first film shot in VistaVision and Technicolor
rolls onto my tv screen; but the evening news, with far more
advanced tools, has begun to seep into my holiday films …
“Jack Pines,” “Beachcombing,” and “Yards Away”
They survived the fin de siècle logging
That claimed the rouge et blanc
Leaving tepees of slash
On the Grayling sand.
And the farmers
Wielding fire to clear land…
“A Poem for Safe Keeping,” “Convergence,” and “Morning”
because I told you
how the homeless woman
preferred over a stranger’s
offer of food, water, money
just a moment of conversation
to confirm that she exists
“I am Here,” “A Small Map of the Stars,” and “An Adventurer”
He takes to his branch each morning, lingers there
Finds his gentle, yet firm grip on the wood with his small claws
Steady, he welcomes the fresh air
The sun on his strong beak
The orange light peaking through the high buildings
He closes his eyes
Takes in the soft breeze on his black feathers
“Love stories,” “It has been so long,” and “Saying goodbye”
The laughter you hear, deep within the interior of the house,
Where the old couple from Italy, have lived for fifty years.
Or the glimpse of the treasured grandson across the road,
Laughing as his cousin chases him with the garden hose.
“Fireweed in Autumn,” “Night Falls,” an “High Desert Nightfall”
A sentinel for three seasons,
The fireweed stands unsteady
In the freshening breeze.
A phoenix of the scorched earth,
Its seeds break out in gossamer clouds,
Seeking newly ravaged lands to restore.
“Glory’s Perseverance,” “The Lark,” and “Silk Worm”
The days have merged into one
Like an endless musical number
The sequences of which
Play eternally without muse
I woke up
To a message from someone special
Whom I haven’t spoken to in God knows how long
“First taste,” “Cooks River Avian Real Estate,” and “Breakfast”
Obediently, the baby
opens her mouth
to the spoon.
She has watched the adults
opening their mouths
around the table for so long,
“The Voice of Wind,” “Coyote Laughing,” and “Some Instructions for Living”
Listen to the wind, its
strings and strains of
language and song
pulling you to your feet;
a ragdoll animated and living.
“She Comes. She Goes. She Comes.,” “On the Fence,” and “In the collection”
She disappears
takes with her
something created together
I move forward to where she stood
the absence of her presence
leaves behind a vacuum
“Wood Wound Pareidolia,” “Gravity,” and “August 6 with Kokeshi Dolls”
The possible face stares back at me
from across the weedy, ragged backyard,
its dark grey oval rising from the darker
striated bark of the sweetgum.
“Starlight Stitches,” “A Collection,” and “A Moment Lost”
In the galaxies pooling in the waiting room
where black holes hum the prelude
to creation
we chart the shushed diagnosis
embossed in the orbit of
the body’s forgotten comets.
“The Handkerchief,” “Elfie Cooks Oatmeal,” and “Ascension”
My mother’s white handkerchief
lies on my hand, the corners
embroidered with small flowers,
pink, blue, white. I unfold it
and find the yellow feather,
where I put it eighty years ago.
“Parade Day,” “The Irish Fairy,” and “Little Bird”
Marching men in uniforms, crisp
Navy-blue shoulders, starchy stiff
Polyester and pins
Bagpipes gasp and gather
The strength to carry the day
“My Bus Worries Me,” “Voice of Yesterday Morning,” and “Strangers”
Epicurus the Greek philosopher
tells me not to fear death.
He goes, Why should you fear death?
If you are, then death is not.
“Mary Fleck,” “Something Out of Nothing,” and “In Rimini”
Once, in another time, I traveled with my parents
In the 1951 Ford sedan to a distant part of the city.
You could call it a city, but everyone then
Referred to it only as a town.
“Pursuit,” “The Endless,” and “The Unswept Sky”
The hawk’s shadow follows me.
Some smoker’s tar coats my lungs,
all the tiny quivering sacs.
“Self-Sabotage,” “Freely Drifting,” and “Blissful Anguish”
Like a cross stitch
I tied down your limbs
thread by thread
preventing you from flying
“No Tree,” “Saint Valentine,” and “Dead Heisenberg”
“No tree grows all the way to heaven,”
a darling end to a bible story
or Lenten play beginning
you might say;
a betrayal of trust