Forbidden by mom to climb
onto the roof of our house,
mischief prevails
and we do so the minute
she drives away.
20 minutes later my chum
Rich and I leap together
from great heights
onto the lawn below.
Like holy fools caught
with hands in the church
collection plate
we erupt laughing
in midair
as mom turns into the driveway.
12 year old rascal saints
flying halfway between heaven
and earth with hell possibly
not far behind.
60 years later
the memory blossoming
wings to paradise.
Like that potholed washboard road
he traipsed along, boots caked
with dust, lips cracked tingling
gladness under noontime sun,
he's been scraped so clean
by Life herself that nothing
this moment was missing
and only a shimmering
audacity remained.
May speech of stones,
songs of birches,
whispers of streams
and dance of sunlight
across the meadow
of your body
and oceans
of your mind
carry you forth
through this threshold
into your heart's
tender courage
and the next seasons
of your flourishing life.
Grandson Quincy's chocolate-
tinged lips and sweet brown
eyes staring up at his gramps
half awake, holding
this first cup of coffee
and remnants of rising steam
from what remains
of last night's dream.
Listening within without
precondition may you
be so graced to
hear the speech of stones,
witness dancing clear
waters, taste
spacious sky's glory
through innocence ablaze
in shut-tight, wide-open
eyes.
Let's keep plunging for pearls,
feasting on oranges and pomegranates,
preparing for arrival
into that river
of silver and light.
Delight by name of hummingbird
flits from bush to branch
and back,
again again and again.
Ahh! such pleasure
she exudes
flirting with this orange flower
and this man's upturned gaze,
his expanding amazed grin....
These leaves of ancient birch forests
floating onto the shore of the great lake,
their diaphanous soughing
massaging dusk's furthest corners.
Laughing, you scramble ahead
and disappear into the dark.
If you sit quietly long enough,
usually alone at dawn,May the multitudes of weary and ragged animals,
yes--also these human ones--
find deep rest and solace for their sun-drenched
drought-parched wandering bodies
spinning minds and anxious hearts
within the safe surroundings
of a moss-soft moist cave
where all are cradled
well inside
a secret loving gaze....
You stop and listen carefully
to a subtle speech
held within the sturdy
syntax of stones,
slowly at first,
then suddenly as a summer storm,
you arrive surrounded
by blessed silence
in a communion of solitude
SUCH RAUCOUS STILLNESS
spoken by granite,
basalt and limestone
unbidden
into the hearth and haven,
this hidden heart
of your truest home.
Living alone
has many
advantages.
The ice cream
in the freezer
stays put
until you finish off
that final bowl
all by yourself.
The toothpaste tube
and toilet paper roll
always are positioned
properly and recycled
in a timely fashion
into their assigned
receptacles.
There’s never a need
for negotiation regarding
on which wall
those airborne humans
in the Chagall print
belong or if the forks
and spoons are happiest
on the right or left
side of the stove.
And when you come home
from a walk roaming
through your quiet
neighborhood
late at night
there’s no annoying
partner to greet
and hug you,
to kiss your quivering lips
and smile lovingly
at your simple
existence,
as you step in
from the cold.
A Vibrant Shabby Home
This body, a crumbling
estate built by generations
of Croatians, Norwegians,
Swedes and Ojibwa ancestors,
is slowly transforming, some
would say ‘falling apart’ :
a swollen profligate prostate,
sometimes foggy brain,
shrinking biceps and seedling
cataracts not yet needing surgery;
but zest and joy are still
to be had dancing in the dusty
courtyard under starlight at midnight,
planting poppies of hope
at the feet of a statue of Venus,
and sitting entranced for hours
outside with coffee Sunday morning
in the backyard—the vibrato
of hummingbirds sipping
from blossoms above, a solo monarch
brilliant in early light flits from rosebush
to lemon tree to the pines across the road,
and then the star of the show—
a gray bunny who’s recently made this old
place his home and happily nibbles
the lettuce and apples he’s given.
Graced by a beautiful disrepair—
holes in a screen door, weeds
in the garden, a missing plank
in the deck where Nibbles now lives,
there’s wildness here and in the quiet
at dusk, songs of longing and joy
can be heard flowing
from the ancient infrastructures
woven from bone and blood, stone
and steel, all that lives here now
and has lived and left,
those ancestors who worked, rested,
wandered and wondered,
the ones I now thank
who loved this body
into vibrant being.
Quietly,
You sit.Next to her I sit,
Where I cannot refrain
From touching
These slender white
Wrists, like two tiny birds
Bathing in sun sheen, singing
Pure joy
In the birch trees
Shimmering green
Always
Above us.
Watering In Verse
Some days before the sizzle
picks up steam and your
thermometer bulges
like weight lifters on steroids,
yes, these early mornings of cool
breezes and quiet streets is exactly
when the best poetry is not
a bundle of evocative words
on the page but rather
as simple as turning on
this water spigot to fill
the brown jug, then soaking
your recently planted thirsty
bushes dancing in soft air,
whispering beauty
across the driveway
to no one and to everyone,
their small smiling purple flowers
the sweetest verse you’ve
read in months.
Warming This Place
The hearth of the home—
the core of its being
and thrust
of its mysterious
becoming—
is the human heart
vibrant and tender,
often shy
yet still
opening
without restraint
to the human and
more-than-human hearts
all around, these trees
stones animals grasses
people and clouds,
while full-circling
like a wobbly child
on her first bike
rounding the block,
bravely learning
to receive the gift
of kindness
as Dad’s proud grin
holds her steady softly
from 30 feet behind
even as strong
calloused hands
that guided
have let go.
Stupefacente
To Be Astonished
Breezes out of nowhere effervesce
across our whispering tongues, midday
light scatters her heady fragrance
far beyond boyhood’s red bicycles, rooftop
escapades, mischief-making
job descriptions and voluptuous
caramel sundaes taken in ecstatic
silence on creaky drugstore stools, lips
smacking the only sound. Later
those Saturday afternoon movie screens
hurling magic towards beguiled eyes
like flames blowtorched from a mighty
dragon. Nothing could match
that freedom then, that flying
through space shoelaces flapping,
grinning and cavorting, belly laughing,
where even freckles pack dancing shoes.
Earth Quakes
A glass table shatters
like a family
after the affair
or the woman’s cry
as she hears
that awful diagnosis.
Tiny jewels fallen
into cracks, shards
of what was once
a stable place for wine
and plates of food,
now scattered aimlessly
across this surface remind
us of life’s intrinsic
fragility and our naked
thirst for certainty.
Such urgency unslaked.
How this next hungry
breath might be
our last,
or the newborn’s pink
and lusty first, lips
quivering she leans
towards the mirror
of shimmering
fulfillment, then
takes a sip.
A Pasta-ed Life
When a woman
With two first names
Exclaimed to me
‘You’re a noodler’
As I carefully placed
Each bit of bark
Back in my yard
From the sidewalk
Onto which it strayed,
I initially cringed
At the comparison
To a limp tube of flour,
Egg and salt afloat
In a boiling pot of water.
But now that I’ve seen
The light, having a mind
Comprised of compulsive
Habits like a bowl
Of rigatoni
Piled high and
Arranged perfectly or
Like a poem that enchants
With each line repeatedly
In rhyme,
Is satisfying beyond
All words, a compliment
Sublime.
Looming
Although
I’ve never seen nor
Heard her
When traipsing
Upon my nearby
Mountain among
Sumac blooming and
Fields singing jagged
Stones,
Something in me knows
There’s a sleek
And muscled
Cougar hidden,
Prowling behind
Boulders big as cars—
In silence yes she’s stalking,
Creeping slowly, always
Looming and then,
With uneasy
Shallow breathing,
I’m bound for safety
Where my truck is waiting
And for the mildness
Of home,
Where with luck,
(And uneaten)
I’ll soon be
Drinking coffee
Chuckling
At my folly, content
With this desire
For all that’s woven
Wild and unseen.
Even a pandemonium of crows
erupting from morning's quiet
cannot disturb this clear pool
of sky rippling gently
across memories of you Chris,
wearing your new crewcut
courtesy of our pops' barber clippers
on summertime's patio
and grinning through corncob
teeth as you dip your whole fist
into the cardboard box of Wheat Thins
like cherished treasure here
in our postage-stamp backyard
blooming with dad's roses and mom's
clothesline and that wall of dusty ivy pilfered
from Jefferson's home high on a hill
in a place you'll never visit
called Monticello.
To make peace with the hole
we believe death creates
we must,
(yes, must)
make whole these pieces
our life does take.
May the white rose
of your fragrant
body sleeping
dissolve moonbeams
in the lake
of tonight's sacred
dreamscape.
three wet stones in the lad's pants pocket borne home like a secret between two chums, two forever treasured in his desk drawer, the desk his dad commissioned a carpenter to build for him alone, and the shiny oval jasper carefully placed here on an upstairs windowsill where wonder and wandering meet, these mottled and motley, silent friends.
OH WILD LIFE
