Mid-November, Daybreak
Mountains bow low when the day stands up.
Immediately the sun is at our house
preparing to knock – the maple spreads its arms.
Later, we wake among stilled stars and golden silence.
Mid-November, Daybreak
5 Replies
Tag Archives: poetry
Ash Leaf
Ash Leaf
Watching the moon
through a hole
in an ash leaf
*
What a caterpillar
didn’t eat frames a
thousand years
*
This poem is a leaf
where what’s missing
reveals the other side and
what’s left behind is
bound to fall
Mid-Autumn Figures (Moon and Maple)
Mid-Autumn Figures (Moon and Maple)
Moon
Stone in the sky
tumbles through centuries
of clouds smoothing out
absence with its presence
Maple
Just past their peak, wind-lifted
and let go like a child flung off a swing
higher than they have ever been
Meanwhile on the ridge line the trees
link arms and begin the walk home
Unfinished Dedication
Unfinished Dedication
Now that it is done I should know who I am
and why I did it and who I did it for now
that it is arrived the end should be a secret
passage back to the beginning and this
unfinished space a private garden at world’s
end and the buried seeds break anew now that
destruction’s heat has called them open and when
things begin that are unexpected we should have
expected them back here at the beginning knowing
everything that follows but because nothing
follows the end I should know I’m not there now
that it is done and where are you now that
It is done you should know who you are
November Mountain Scene
November Mountain Scene
Deer have ventured out through thinning trees
into thickening traffic. Men in trucks gentle them
to the breakdown lane with shovels. The last leaf’s
twisting stem is the voice of the deer in November.
Full Moon Social Anthology 1 [#fullmoonsocial2014]
The idea was simple–let’s all gaze at the moon together, wherever we are, and share our words and images. Let’s have a full moon social event that the Ancients would understand and appreciate.
On October 8, 2014 WordPress and Twitter sparkled with poems, prose fragments, and photos from an assortment of creative folk using the hashtag #fullmoonsocial2014. It was a fun night to moon-gaze — and to refresh our searches on that tag to see what new poem or photo had popped up.
As much as I could, and with the permission of the authors, I have gathered this work into a humble anthology, available in PDF format. While designed like a traditional book, and without the website-inspired underlining, the websites or Twitter handles of each contributors are live links which will take you directly to their sites to find out more about the author and her/his work. The Contents pages are likewise linked to the book as well.
Please feel free to download it here, as a keepsake and a thank-you from me for joining in, to write, contribute, and to read. Any typos or other issues are mine, and please do not hesitate in letting me know if some adjustment needs to be made.
Likewise, if you’re an author or artist or photographer who contributed to the Full Moon Social but you don’t see your work here, let me know and I’ll add it in.
And if anyone’s interested in doing it again…
The Sound
The Sound
Today the sound of rain is over my head, in the leaves.
For a month it will get more and more silent
As the canopy thins, even as each drop more directly
hits its mark it will be more and more like a whisper
of something going away, until the level of leaf is ground
and then in the first cold rain a new sound like a cough
rattling to life instead of death, louder and colder will
arise from the earth, for a few times anyway reminding
us that nothing not even death stops talking until the
first snowflake tells it utterly and quietly to shut up.
Psalm
Psalm
So where is the past? Is it the terrain
in periphery, never the destination
but whose contours shape the weather?
Is it the icy light the moon reflects
on the tracks of things before me?
Wonderful deeds have we done, and
fearful things. They lay across the path
of parting like roots or over-hang
my steps with shade and snakes.
I do not wish to look
back. I only need to know
from which direction will come
the monster-god it has nurtured
to replace me so that I may stand
before him in the breach to turn away
his wrath, convince this pale reflection
that it could be a kinder god
Lines Written After Encountering a Cat in My House, #1
Lines Written After Encountering a Cat in My House, #1
The darkness of a cat sliding past me on its way
up the stairs as I descend can seem symbolic
of a missed opportunity or something passing by
I should have paid more attention to on my way
to put out the trash but in reality I still got the trash
put out and a cat passing by in the dark on the stairs
is never an opportunity even in this ankle deep silence
The Present [#FullMoonSocial2014]
The Present
O star you should have known
not even your memory will eclipse you
No distance will establish a shadow
between this heart and yours
The light that comes back to me
from something larger—is it
not my own joy which without you
I would never know?
Translations from the English 