June Poem

It might be easier at the sea,

on a point, Atlantic or Pacific,

that commands a view 

in halcyon or storm-surge,

the wave on wave compulsion

that takes everything unmoored out 

bringing some things back in, 

much lost between tides,

always something to find,

though little of worth 

outside human sentiment,

to do as Jeffers suggests:

to unhumanize our views

and see more clearly 

our own worth, or lack of it.

Here, mid-continent bound,

sitting on this slight rise,

two familiar trees 

of relative height and girth—twins,

of different parentage 

but shared ecology—friends

to me, though they require work,

it is near to impossible

that I separate my struggles,

my joy, from their fullness, their wounds,

their calm, their longstanding-ness.

In this sultry June moment,

their leaves hang limp,

barely shaking in the faintest of breezes,

as a late robin still finds his worm

and the bluejay yips to chide 

some smaller singer’s warning.

I wonder where the rabbits have gone,

so much clover to graze, 

some many soft topped dandelions.

What have I done to deserve

such peace in the middle of such torment?

It would certainly be easier at the sea,

to forget the boundaries 

my own time has bought for me,

the accident of my birth, here—

landlocked and prairie-girt,

at the dull end of a rapturous century,

only to inherit a new millennium

seemingly determined to kill us all

before our three-score and ten.

Then, perhaps not.  I can almost 

smell the salt-air from here,

feel the current pulling at my feet.

The sea would not be good for forgetting.

Time must beat its shores, pebble-soft.

We must be content to grow old while we can.

There will be plenty of time for forgetting.

The rabbits will return;  I am sure of it.

Crete

*I finished Madeline Miller's gripping novel Crete yesterday. The novel's well-imagined plot was compelling; it was extraordinarily well-voiced, attuned to the rhythms, constructs, and themes of the epic tradition, and perfectly paced and rendered. A wonderful book. It also reminded me of a set of poems that I worked on last fall about the central characters of Crete. So here are Minos, the Minotaur, Theseus, and Ariadne, reimagined in our unfinished new world. 

“Let us wander forever / in the labyrinths of our self-esteem.” 

(Wendell Berry, “Let Us Pledge”)

I. Minos

It is easy to sit in judgement

over a world in which power

& privilege dictate that some-

one else’s suffering could 

always have been avoided

if only they saw it from your

hallowed (ad)vantage point.

It is infinitely more difficult

to climb down from the tower 

to gain the view from below,

to foot the rocky path,

to take no step for granted

knowing at any point 

ignorance of the rules

might trigger a fall,

might shift the weight

in such a way that the

whole earth breaks, toppling

tower and maze and temple

into a cruel sea of

self-doubt and fear of erasure.

II. The Minotaur

In the center of it all,

a heart beats in an

unfit body: half-this,

half-that, all hunger.

Even the heavy horns

point in divergent

directions and turning—

dizzying even desire

into a vortex of 

suffering, regret,

and satisfaction.

III. Theseus

Privilege is being

lost at birth and

finding out later

that your birthright

entitled you to the

throne of a kingdom

that you don’t even

want and whose

crown you can 

afford to give away

in the name of 

aristocracy.

IV. Ariadne

When it is all said and done,

it would have been better

to keep the thread for

yourself, weave a spider-

like web for a home,

render the minotaur’s

blood into ink, 

its hide into parchment,

and write your own myth,

sew it together into

a bible of reasons

to mistrust the gods,

or a manual of self-help 

for abandoned heroes

whose savior-women

and wounded sirens

decided to spend their

time serving themselves

instead of waiting to be

rescued, deceived, or

destroyed.

A Storm at Sea on Whitman's 200th Birthday

Oak Island, NC 

May 31, 2019

At mid-afternoon it was visible off-shore to east and west.

Before sunset, the sheets fell sidewise in a stiff north wind,

as we gathered to witness from the top deck of the house.

As rain swelled, winds dropped to naught for the first time in days

only to return to gale when the rain came to a temporary halt.

The sun in the southwest hung a double-arcing bow—

bridging road and house and sea, diverting all eyes.

But it was after dark that the show began in earnest—
a pulsating sky alive with electricity.

For hours, the night beach was lit up by flashing clouds

and the forked tongues of sky-fire—allowing the beach, 

empty of its human play, to be realized as in daylight.  

I lay awake in the night and listened as the thunder hummed:

This is a world alive with the possibility of perfection.

Temporary Pleasure

I enjoy writing poetry. I find pleasure in the struggle to follow a poetic idea to some tentative conclusion. I feel personally empowered while composing a poem that charts a course for some idea, some emotion, or some imagining. I am proud, though always anxious, to share a new poem, or a rare old one, with the people closest to me, but I have no confidence my poems will have much value outside of a handful of people who know and love me already. I am more than fine with this knowledge. 

I know and believe in the power of a poem to transport or even transform a reader. I have personally experienced this thousands of times, often daily, and many lucky times with my students and colleagues. But this is not the experience I expect from my poems and a larger audience. I lack something as a poet, probably many things, that keep my poetry from reaching a larger audience. I am an avid reader of poetry, and I understand the talent, intelligence, and wit it takes to be a poet. And I know the time, patience, and perseverance it takes to make even one great and lasting poem. It takes much more discipline and craft than I have to give to be a working and publishing poet. For now, I am satisfied with the temporary pleasure of the invention of a poem. I do not need more than this for my poetry, but I do have an urge to share, so I will go back out on this limb. I hope you find some temporary pleasure in it too.

A Long Hiatus

By the blessings of luck, location, and isolation, my family has remained healthy during this pandemic. Like many who have remained safe from the virus, this upheaval of the everyday has led me to much contemplation. As a result, I have been watching the birds more closely (now with the help of one more little, two not-so littles, and one great in-betweener) and I have been reading more by personal choice rather than by career. Curiously, I have not been attempting to write more often. I have decided to remedy that; I have decided to bring back this foolhardy blog. I have no hopes of a wider audience than it once had (maybe half a dozen?), but I am hopeful that it will provide the necessary impetus to start writing again. Wish me luck.

Thursday, After Ashes

“ […] How absurd

to still have a body in this rainbow-gored,

crickety world and how ridiculous to be given one

in the first place […]” Dean Young

Today’s epiphany is my own eyes

drawn to what might make them blind

a perfect orange marble, brightly hanging

& slowly rising toward every eventuality.

What a gift it is to see what you seek

& to know that it is something else as well,

before it disappears.

                                  Before the eyes

go finally blind; before the body, gifted,

is returned to dust—needed to feed

the orange glow for the eyes of others.

The Years Without (A Start?)

[The desire to have said something is not the same as having something to say.]

Somehow, the years without
fill up in ways that preserve
the serene emptiness
of physical loss.

Emotion is conserved,
or converted
into something else--
sometimes tears,
other times words,
often dispersed without
acknowledgement:
an unannounced shiver,
a prolonged look,
something unsuspecting,
suddenly realized across
dull time.

Just recently,
I've noticed the coyote
somehow less shy of the roadside--
and twice the saintly heron
has returned
to the once dry pond,
now silky with tall reeds,
crowding the center
like some green castle
rising up from its moat.

The comfort of the familiar,
slowly displaces what was;
what has disappeared
is only traceable as echo,
recorded in doubtful memory,
seared in scar tissue,
too easily hidden away.

Let there be ghosts.

May they return
as lights for us
to read one another's
upturned faces by.

Cinerum

“Now ravel up the roots of workman oak trees” Merton

Consider the root,
Instead of the branch:
Left to wither?

Each symbolic sacrifice
Traces a shadow circumference:
Ignoring the growth-ring?

If you were to see me,
Ash-carrier, brow-beat,
What story would construct itself?

As it is, there is only forgetfulness,
& a choice to struggle through:
a doubter hanging on to skeptical confidence.

All this while:
The root still clutches & the branch is yet to break,
Where come all these ashes?

Advent 1

Dumb as Oaks

It is wind that speaks,
not the branch, the leaves
now gone, silent unless
trampled. Cry out.

When the branch breaks
it is the ice that sounds
the crack. Its tiny fingers
cannot help but hold or fall.

Melt will be months coming,
a long hibernation, unslept,
beard grown to length,
urge quieted down to resolve.

What is it we wait for,
dumb as oaks, gone as the grass
beneath swayed hills of snowdrift?
Certainly, there is something in that light.

The slant the birds know means:
nearly there, just wait for the
winds to shift, the familiar call
of that place is home too:

That branch that won't break.

Empty Handed

The pleasure of
people standing
empty handed:

voices carrying
between bodies
or silence curling,

smoky breath, exhaling
into a thousand
possible utterances.

Exiting a building,
near sundown:
This world glows.