Category: Poems

Furrows and mounds
of linensoft soil
surround my love

the gentlest of hands
plowed this earth
and tilled it

removed each rock
broke apart clay
smoothed and sculpted

then planted me,
a seed, a row
a row, a row

and willed the sun
to warm where
he could not

asked the rain
to send the kiss
he could not give

white roots
new green shoots
work free the ground

reaching forward
pulling upward
unfurling outward

so tended
there is blooming
and in color I riot

tendrils
coil around
everything they reach

wanting to bring
him all the joy
the soil can hold

all the joy
he can hold
in dirt stained palm

the night is in its summerling state
someplace inbetween the end of spring
and the beginning of summer

the scent of rain and newness
of mud and worms and thawing
has taken the shoulder tap
and let the soft scents of blossoms
sweetgrass and bugspray
have the next dance

they will love like this the season
when it is not too warm or too cold,
dancing as if they do not know
that as the days move

the twinkling lights of fireflies
and bonfires
and the rhythm of cicadas
and stringed crickets
will give way to the sound of the thresher
come fall,
when the apples have swollen
and the next hand reaches
toward the dance
with a scattering of leaves
in her wake.

grumbling
he hefts the light
its brightness past its time
the shell of a discarded sun
whose gels once covered a world.

(smiling)
(she feels the task)
(and holds close the hand)
(that his frustration might not rage)
(and the meek may still inherit this world)

furrowing
his brows frame
those eyes watching
the coiling cord wind around
like the midgard serpent held a world.

(laughing)
(she notes the sound)
(the scrape of steel)
(the humming song of drills)
(the percussive wildness of this world)

sighing
he notes the time
and marks the speed
at which all things are dissembled,
a lugubrious apocalypse upon this world.

(sending)
(she soothes the wrist)
(marked by some small sharpness)
(and takes the tiny drop of blood)
(as promise that he will save her this world)

resigning
he carries the weight
of all with resentful care
the pieces fitting one by one into their places
as ought all things in the world.

Those hands,
roughened,
with nicks and scars innumerable,
kissed by a thousand splinters
slowly make the world beneath them
perfect.

Casting off with chisel and plane
the rough bark,
the weathered grit,
the bruises of growing,
something comes, new
and unseen.

What lies beneath?
Golden lines marked by living?
Rings singing with age?
A piece of long-forgotten nail,
it’s presence a red echo
of its prior self?

Below all that lies the truth
of the wood.

Ringlets fall to the ground
translucently glowing,
a soft fire.

Without those hands
these would be shade,
found walking sticks,
or pillars to God
but never masts,
or tables,
or goblets
to hold wine and blood.

Crafted, as was mankind,
this work is good work,
for as God was a potter,
His son was a carpenter.

Those hands,
roughened,
smooth the plank,
turn the leg,
and with the greatest of love
and attention
sand and smooth
until the hardest branch
is as smooth
as the most innocent cheek.

Those hands,
roughened,
feel with chipped nails and calluses
a softness they long ago lost,
a small sacrifice perhaps
to gently bring forth
the best and most beautiful
of all they touch,
long hidden from view.

Even the branch
would never have suspected
the glowing grain
it long held deep within.

Ticking in threes,
unsyncopated,
the staccato clocks
mark the time of the morning.

A rush, a whirlwind!
then silence
as in the cool kitchen
varied metronomes
mark the time of the morning.

In the quiet
I open a door
to a place where there are no clocks,
where time has less meaning
than thought.

And I dream of doing there
all that I do here:

pour the coffee
pace the hallway
clean a dish
type a word

but with you looking over my shoulders
it feels different somehow ,
to mark the time of the morning.

The mandingoes.

A large crowd of negroes
were to take things
out of Lincoln’s hands.

Verily it was a lame story,
and the landlady
looked doubtfully,
acted as bodyguard to the king.

During each year
she is so finiky about
her pleasures
and
besides.

In Isfahan from its earliest foundation,
“It couldn’t be done,” she said.
And then, with the greatest good in my intention,
Said I, cocking my rifle, “It is going to spring!”
Cement buildings opposite each other glower,
their alleys tight and dusty,
painted with gold.
Fires billow gods of smoke heavenward.
Said she, cough in throat, “ah, to grow
old together, and look at the stars and make
poetry…”
before that soft, damp sound.
The domes glisten,
the bazaar silent,
save for the twinkling sounds
of falling tile and glass
and the cool northern winds.

(This is about half junkmail, half me. For some reason all I could see in the mass of words was war and love.)