Night

having come from heaven wrapped in a purple cloak


[Sappho, Fragment 54, Anne Carson, trans.]

everything conforms to her because she calls
so calm:   let the darkness settle around you,
a perfect fit for a mind in need of restful sleep

Humility

I would not think to touch the sky with two arms


[Sappho, Fragment 52, Anne Carson, trans.]

grabbing something of it to gather in for wish-making,
knowing enough of prayer to doubt the silence or the answer,
settle instead for the habitual, bedside beads, a piety of memory:

if I were the one to call down miracles would there be such emptiness?

This One

of all stars the most beautiful

[Sappho, Fragment 104b, Anne Carson, trans.]

this one, just now shining,
speaks to me of possibility,
saying:

it is no use to wish,
all that is yours will
in its due time come.

Need

not one girl I think
           who looks on the light of the sun
                       will ever
                       have wisdom
                       like this

[Sappho, Fragment 56, Anne Carson, trans.]


to know 
             that need is without, is loud,
&           
             contentment is within, is silent
            

Perspective

the world that spins us,

contains us, was before us,

& survives beyond us, 

moves faster than we suspect

when we’re flung & notice,

it’s easy to suppose the moving

is for us, alone, or our small collectives,

but  it does not spin for us

we think that what we know

is large enough to slow

a spinning sphere, but

in this system, pace is everything

while we, self-saturated,  shrink

 back to dust,  a universe expands

in ways imperceptible & doesn’t

have to pretend to know or not know

it is so easy to build a model of a world

revolving around us,

to feel the pull of gravitons

as they force others in & out of our lives

but ever so hard to realize that countless

other spinning particles have worlds

as precious, as tormented, as magnetized

as ours seems to be from our own ground zero

After-Flood

The dry bones remind
The survivors about the
Impermanence of suffering

Awake, Alone

I fill rooms with imagined friends
& am often alone within the loud, surrounding crowd.
I have searched the mirror for a recognizable face
& the window for a trace of ghosts redressed as birds.

I've climbed predictable heights,
found myself lost in familiar halls,
run far away in hope I'd never catch a glimpse of the damage left behind,
but find forgetfulness faster even than memory spinning out new, old songs.
I'm first to recognize that humility lies,
& last to find truth within my doubt,
but tonight I'm in love with the sound of a sleeping house.

I scan the quiet pre-midnight for the shuffle of dreaming dear ones,
allow the pulsing of four hearts to harmonize,
the chests' gentle fall & rise: a body tide
whose gravity rides me through what might have been a lonely night.
Let this night's song remain until these eyes close,
& let this not be the last night that alone feels so much like shared time.

Phase Three

When I started this space nearly a year and a half ago I called it All Shall Be Well.The thought was that I wanted a place to post non-news (poems) that suggest the world wasn't crashing & burning. I still don't think it is. A few months later I changed it 1606 & 231, the numerical markers of the two places I most often write (besides my car). Although these two "real" spaces are still very much important to me & what I write, I have decided that they no longer represent what I'm up to with this project. Therefore, welcome to Field Marks.

FIELD MARK

noun
a visible mark or characteristic that can be used in identifying a bird or other animal in the field.

I am no naturalist; I am not a birder. But my relationship with nature, with birds in particular, is similar to my relationship with words, with poetry especially. That is, I seek them out eagerly, I cannot imagine not paying attention to words, not being willing to locate the poetic in life, in thought, & in "real" experience in the world, in birds even.

In calling this space Field Marks, I am locating these writings within the field that is theworld where I live. It encompasses room 231, the hill on which 1606 sits, the 52 miles of Kansas highway between them, and the landscapes I travel, both "real" & imaginary. So that's the field; here I will post some of the marks.

Thanks for visiting, please feel free to leave your own marks.

P.S. Sometimes ghosts leave the best marks.

*************

What is & What seems

Sometimes it's difficult to choose
which to believe in:

Between the certainty of knowledge
& the whisper of doubt.

The perception of identity
& the palimpsest of memory.

The blur of distance,
or proximity's cues.

The Taste of Things

There’s a word, I love,

I heard & said & said,

days ago, that now

cannot remember.

The sense of it remains somehow

rounded round the palette,

sound still on the  tongue,

but now unutterable, almost impalpable.

This is what memory is like.

The taste of a certain moment

sticks in the throat.

Another settles in a cavity

that years have slowly eaten away.

We savor the familiar,

long for the sweet trigger

from an earlier life,

some unrecoverable trace.

The word does not satisfy this.

Note: I think the second half needs another stanza. I worked on some ideas but cut them for balance. Any suggestions? I had been thinking about this poem (the word on the tip of the tongue) for weeks. Listening to Calvin Forbes read "Momma Said" on The Poetry Magazine Podcast helped me get this draft written. Thanks to Don Share and Christian Wiman; they may not publish my poems but sometimes they help make them.)

When You've Seen a Ghost

The difference between
wake & sleep
is less obscured than
your friends might think.

The bell still rings
at the prescribed time;
appointments await
or remain unscheduled.

No one comments:
You look like...
(as they drift on by
pasty in Egyptian sheets).

The light in the hallway,
always on,
casts a twisty shadow
on a childhood wall.

What the ghost said:
Faith, if it is at all,
is a fragile thing,
waste no time worrying.

What you look like
when you've seen a ghost
is nothing different than
the faraway look in a window mirror.