River
River how do I find you always
in the same place when
you have the inclination of the mountain
yet lean towards level speech
narrow minded yet source of every ocean
where a late sun is sipping on the horizon
River
6 Replies
The Onlywhere
The Onlywhere
Morning’s eye sees everywhere
the green field of dew draped grass
Afternoon’s eye sees only where
a single blade leaning protects
the only drop its day will hold
I Remember the Future
I Remember the Future
I remember the future where all poets were famous
I remember the future where there were so few
things and people that they were all the best
where nobody cares for long who won or lost
I remember the future had always been where the family
would be sound of mind and body
I remember the force of the world working
backwards in time broke upon me like a windshield
I remember the moment looking forward became
looking back that all these futures drove
the present and their shadows solidified
to stone became the past
I remember this moment was when I understood
love
but tonight as the moon slowly fills
with the bones of days
(all the dead come from the future
from the days that did not live)
it is harder to remember the past
where I learned I did not have to forgive
myself or others to take my next breath
the only one available in the present
The Shadow
The Shadow
The shadow arrives at the train station
on a sunny midafternoon.
He is only here because you are
though neither of you were expecting the other.
though neither of you were expecting the other.
When you stand on the bridge over the tracks
he waits below on the platform.
he waits below on the platform.
When the train slides into the station and stops
he lies on the roof of the cabin, unnaturally relaxed.
he lies on the roof of the cabin, unnaturally relaxed.
People step off and others step on but he does
not get up. When the train begins moving he slides
not get up. When the train begins moving he slides
into a blur until the last car is gone
then he is back on the platform
then he is back on the platform
as if he had just decided he wanted to get
away from you but it was too late, his shadow
away from you but it was too late, his shadow
ticket was not accepted by the conductor.
He would turn his back on you but he has no back
He would turn his back on you but he has no back
or front, just questions. How does one act upon the world
with no depth? with no agency? You have had
with no depth? with no agency? You have had
enough, and hurry down the steps from the bridge
to confront him but the platform is empty.
to confront him but the platform is empty.
Quite suddenly, you experience a thrill, as if
someone had walked across your shadow.
someone had walked across your shadow.
Worst Poem in This Collection [from 20 Poems & Other Translations from the English]
Worst Poem in This Collection
I walked in a circle around an idea.
Like a car in a well-lit parking lot it cast many faint shadows
Spoking out in all directions, but was itself unperceived, as is
Anything at rest exactly where it should be.
Like a circle of vultures it led me to myself walking
Injured by the road’s edge. I’m still not sure what hit me. That
Would have been the good poem.
Distant Lightning [from The Artificial Horizon, 2013]
Distant Lightning
Thunderheads cover the western sky
As I drive down the mountain.
The lightning shoots out, four or five bolts
At a time, some cascading to earth,
Others quilting clouds together
Into a single silent storm.
For here there’s no sound.
Only as I drive into town does a soft
Rain begin to fall.
As if someone were fighting their inner demons
And projecting it to the sky for everyone to see,
Even though it was happening only in a hallway
Of a small house somewhere.
And from that struggle comes that softest
Rainfall which does no damage
And from which lilies will bloom anew,
And peonies, and dandelions and a thousand
Things unnoticed in the grass.
And now through a window of open sky
The smallest hint of sunset on one cloud’s edge,
And the calming cool breeze that tucks
The entire town in is the result
Of that struggle, won or lost
And hidden somewhere behind
A single blind.
Acorns [from Vanishing Tracks]
Acorns
The long winter ends when
The tree remembers he is in love.
From his many hands the leaves
Unfold and fall, the pages’
Ever changing colors waiting
To be read in wonder but
Instead in time
Gathered by rakes and scoundrels
Yet still the tree continues
To produce, he cannot be stopped,
Though the present blows through
Him in westerly gusts he stands fast
And the fruit of his thought flies loose,
Each acorn that batters the roof below
A love letter, a blown kiss, a single everlasting
Glance forgotten. You will hear them
On your own roof tonight,
In the brief moment they strike wondering
If it was you they were meant for
Then rolling on the grass or driveway
To be stomped on by the girl whose head
One fell on without saying why,
Or rolled over by the one who loves you
Driving away for who knows how long
In that fragile casing,
The birds taking the rest, only the squirrels
Understanding and tucking a few away
For when the landscape has lost its verse.
Then the snow’s white manners
Exerting months of formalities
Finally bullied away by mud and
A single sprouting oak a few fields
Away. You walk outside
And the sun is a warm leaf on your cheek
And you are beautiful and the tree
Remembers he is in love.
City [from Vanishing Tracks]
City
It takes a while for the city to remember you.
You were the one who left, after all.
As if the city were a vast ship
You feel it roll on now unfamiliar
Swells of commerce, your step uncertain.
Have you been gone so long
A voice asks. It is the type
Of conversation strangers overhear.
Walking past the diner you see
Your city body, just a few blocks ahead
But lose it in the crowd. Underground
At the turnstiles it swipes its pass
While you fumble in your pocket
For change. Someone is tuning
An instrument and about to sing.
You are reaching back in your pocket
When someone puts a dollar into your hand.
It is your city body. The first notes
Of the city’s song are subway brakes.
The train stops like a dollar dropped
On velvet and the city drifts out to greet you.
Welcome back, welcome back, you hear a voice say
And it is your own voice.
Vanishing Tracks (III)
Vanishing Tracks (III)
I chased your past into my future
Hoping to keep it in front of me
But I was afraid I would lose my way
And looked back
Sestina, with Christmas Lights [from Vanishing Tracks]
Sestina, with Christmas Lights [from Vanishing Tracks]
Through the graves of trees comes a quiet that is almost conscious.
A memory in search of its strength, like blood racing to the heart
To be replenished with oxygen. In that quiet is our quick
Reinvention, and we have forgotten already who we were, what our stories
Were about, in the way that the clump of unplugged Christmas lights
Has nothing to do with Christmas. I had a similar feeling in a hotel
Once, where I did not recognize my story as being set in a hotel
But there I was. I was home in a way I was not even conscious
Of acknowledging, as Christmas is not acknowledged by Christmas lights
But by acknowledging the birth of something brand new in our hearts
That just might save us if we can forget all the stories
That have come before it, if our sense of eternity’s quick
Enough to follow tracks time’s flurries are so quick
To fill. It’s too cold outside: back to memory’s mansion or is it a hotel
Of the same room comfortably over and over, the same stories
In generic bedrooms we’re nearly content in without us being conscious
Of not having slept there before? The past is leading my heart
To a place the past cannot be, but like one short in Christmas lights
May darken an entire string, most of which would still light if the Christmas lights
Were wired differently. But we can’t change the way we’re wired or how quick
Darkness in one triggers a darkness in many. Right now your heart
Just pumped a liter of blood in one beat, like checkout time at a hotel
Where everybody knows they’re coming back but are conscious
They will get a different room that will be familiar as the stories
They grew up with are different from the stories
They tell. And still nobody has invented better Christmas lights.
When I speak to my mother about Christmas she is no longer conscious
Of memory as memory, it is the tree her speech lands on like the quick
Accumulation of snow on branches. It is like she is wandering in a hotel
Where her key opens every door and every room touches her heart
Though she’s no longer talking about Christmas. I don’t have the heart
To correct her, or maybe I have heart enough to know her stories
Are closer to being correct, they’re all there in the same hotel
Like a convention of amnesiacs, and either the Christmas lights
Are lit or they are not, but their keys fit all the doors now, and quick
As a wink there’s a mint beside the bed of all that is conscious.
Boxing up ornaments and taking down the tree, the family was suddenly conscious
Of disconcerted movement: two weeks in warmth, and hatched hungry to the quick,
Hundreds of praying mantis glittered like unexpected Christmas lights.
Translations from the English 