Tag Archives: poetry

South and North (1)

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Almost too slow for the eye, the lowcountry marsh
bends against the new season’s subtle color.

Above the snowline the years startle:
the flick of the starling’s iridescent wing.

River

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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

I Remember the Future

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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

Distant Lightning [from The Artificial Horizon, 2013]

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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]

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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]

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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 (I)

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Vanishing Tracks (I)

On my journey home
the clouds obscure the one road up the mountain
like gods who long
since forgetting what they have made
come this way again
recognizing nothing

A hundred hazard lights blinking
of strangers slowing through that veil
could be seen from a distance
as some kind of worship

A half hour later
the clouds will be gone the road will not remember
they were ever here

On the mountain’s other side
I see them again
three heads on the sky’s coins
all looking away
and then again above the valley floor ahead of me
a tail of a giant sea creature twelve miles long
diving into the horizon

I can bear the gods forgetting all they have made
until they no longer exist
even in memory
and have made nothing
how much heavier though is your forgetting
because I know you
did what the gods could not

Still I will follow these vanishing tracks

*

Note: The three title poems from my 2011 book Vanishing Tracks, and another poem entitled “Sestina, with Christmas Lights,” were written in honor of my mother, who at the time of their composition had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s but was still living with my father. These poems, of course, are about memory, family, the sacred nature of motherhood, loss, and loss suffered across a family in a manner that is keenly unique but which impacts the rest of your life’s views on everything, from identity to suffering to love.