September cooling to October stops the throat with a doughy phlegm; a hundred years ago “lung fever” killed thousands, left the rest to cabin fever — then, for whoever emerged from that white chrysalis: spring. Dying, my grandmother took an interest in migration, tallying species at the hospital feeder. I almost believed the evening grosbeak…
The pine floor looses its last green to the hands of the woman beside me. She takes small stalks — heal-all and aster — to sketch in the evening, of this, the first day of a fast fading October. Only then, slowly searching the underbrush, do we sense the ordered row of quartz markers and…
Dawn. Ice. Light. Third dawn in the season of ice. For the third time we submitted ourselves to the cold and cramped interior of the black carriage, and in most respects this ride, though shorter, was like the last: Bel Esprit was again dressed in red and wore her hat; Seigneur and I were hooded;…
Here in purgatory bare ground is visible, except in shady places where snow prevails. Still, each day sees the restoration of another animal: a sparrow, just now a sleepy wasp; and, at twilight, the skunk pokes out of the den, anxious for mates and meals. . . . On the floor of the woodshed the…
If only I could tell you how wildness-shows the space between us and the green world; how an island is the same island with our presence, but with that presence we lose some hope of seeing, say, a horse, or the dead gnarled limbs of an oak sunk in sand. Edward Weston saw it in…
It’s visitor’s day At the end of the night As a mirror keeps hurrying Another wedding through the moon The survivors looking back with satin or top hats . . . Scraps of the calendar Fill the dull air The altar of the hospital Dim as lamps in wartime It’s December again The year gods…
Years ago, in a plane over California, I suddenly thought I understood Keats’ sonnet “When I have fears that I may cease to be . . .” I felt changed by the experience, both thrilled and calmed. At the time I worked as a “gofer” for a small film company. IBM was flying us around…
They appeared on the beach as I walked by, the bodies, sprawling on towels immodestly, impervious to stares by what integrity they owned which let them abandon their winter clothes. As they lay in the street, I watched them and followed a man’s search for his wife: a familiar shape and texture, perfume rising from…
The moon’s heavy With too many questions It hangs above us And does its business Though the light is in darkness You and I see it And look out Wanting to be shown more What’s inside what’s around the dream But the light is in darkness Often at Madagascar Could you trust The wicked music…
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