Watchers, US-69 South

The gnarled trees, mostly
cottonwood, rosebud,
& sycamore are lousy
with watchers: red-tailed,
red-shouldered, or
broad-winged raptors.

At the Miami County line
they start to turn dark-winged,
their light autumn bellies
shining in the midday glow.

These are not the same
frequent fliers of my daily drive:
these sentinels stay their posts
suggesting: we know you,
we've seen you before.
It's been too long.

This way

Days 21-22

Photo taken on US-59, 11/18/11
Edited with Photogene2 and Phoster Applications

Is it Time?

Day 18

the difference

between

too early      &

too late

cuts a line

across a face,

cracks brains,

initiates regret:

a voice unheard

in the wilderness

begs for forgiveness

too early      or

too late

no one hears

out of time

the distance

between

too early     &

too late

is impossible

to predict

& too important

not to.

Illuminated

Day 17

Starting out into the cold:

wallet, keys, phone, moon,

who cares what becomes

of the soundless dark?

Something like holiness avoids:

hides behind a maple tree,

hugs the stubblefield,

hangs like dying moss:

        a falling leaf.

Landscape opens into noise:

birdsong, wind-play, leaves,

where all this light comes from,

no one is around to say.

Something like a prayer slips away:

a newly antlered deer deciding:

stay, go, stay, go, go, go

& then it’s lost somewhere:

   a hawk gone on the wing.

Somewhere a pond begins to ice:

the edges ripple less & less,

the heron stops visiting,

fattened cows are led away.

The sun, rising earlier & earlier

illuminates a landscape that grows:

farther & farther & farther,

everything in a new light,

everything in its right place:

everything is full of change.

Your Name Within Mine

Day 16

Walt Whitman, 1856 Manuscript, Leaf 9

    

           

  


   for L.D.C.P.

All through your tiniest year,

I hummed Rachmaninov,

Rice, Beatles, & Stones

dancing circles around tables

all hours of the night to calm

the baby nerves of your gentle soul.

I read you Whitman, or rather

I read Whitman while you slept

in my lap or nearby as everything is

in our small home.

The piece of paper I was earning

still sits in its oversized envelope

in the basement,

while my real work

of that incredible year,

a small green notebook

sewn with orange thread,

sits on your bedroom shelf

a year’s worth of poems,

your first birthday present,

waiting the long years to be read.

Now, you study letters,

sounds, & words.

You make pictures,

build up stories,

draw gorgeous lies,

& practice your blue-eyed smile.

We cherish your sensitive heart

& hope you privilege your infinite mind.

Today may be the reminder

of the six years of your being,

in which hundreds of poems

have been sketched, dreamt & breathed,

but it is your daily life that

is the best of them all:

the continuous reminder

that your birth was an answer

to all that we’d lost.

Whatever

November Poem a Day: Day 15

Every poem is a love poem for something.

Some state it explicitly, others hide

sentiment with complaint or affection

with metaphor, suggesting objectivity

but bleeding introspection.

Let me say this clearly:

 I make poems because something wells up.

Even when it’s out of anger

or resentment , or estrangement, or revenge,

the hard words still ache of some kind of love.

Danger

November Poem a Day: Day 14

Today's prompt is to write a deadly or dangerous poem. I've got nothing. Here's a photo instead.

Civil

November Poem a Day Challenge: Day 13

Like rising too soon from needful sleep,
simple kindness isn't always effortless.

There is enough anger to turn a thousand turbines,
it flares & hisses, boils & seethes. I breathe. I count.

Kindness smiles, winks, & tells stories. It gives.
Resentment takes & take; anger grits its teeth.

Both kindness & its opposite are wild within us,
don't let them convince you otherwise.

Still, let us prize civility. May I not use kindness to cover
the lie nor mask the truth, but if it eases the day, let it.

Make no mistake, your coldheartedness may offend,
but I will choose a fool's benevolence.

Long live the sturdy oak; let the wild vine grow.
It may not be easy, but it beats being rotten within.

Excessive Humility, Excessive Pride

November Poem a Day Challenge: Day 12

"What am I now that I was then?”             
 [Delmore Schwartz]

It is impossible to gather the wisdom of childhood.
It is supplanted by knowledge & worry & growth,
but the wonder in it is irreplaceable, inimitable,
& all we seek through the following years is its insight.

The traces remain & are visible in offspring’s offerings:

looks, cries, features, & fears trigger memories

the way wind shakes trees sending the leaves into

familiar scatterings to be made into piles for deliverance.

Listen, sons, hold on to it as long as you can,

fight the urge to grow up to the plans we’ll inevitably make,

learn how to laugh like you do now when the world suggests resignation,

hold on to the wonder in the tiniest things when everything urges bigger, biggest, best.

You are not only the future, of which I am proud,

You are the perfect now, the acme of potential that humbles me with every smile.

Ghazal in Wartime, 11/11/11

November Poem a Day 2011, Day 11

Two minutes is such a short amount of time
To last so long, to be filled with so much death.

By now we know, and needn't be told:
Nothing is really ever free, especially death.

On Veterans' Day in a time of war,
What can we say that doesn't silently scream: death?

Though the tap of the drums, changes source,
Is it any less daunting when it tattoos out d-e-a-t-h?

What was it the war poets said?
That honor is love or that there really is no death?

How lucky we are, William, to know about death,
To expect so much more & yet so much less out of life.