Lordliest maple, of the thick-poured trunk, late, later, latest, still to be treasuring so uncountably many leaves — themselves forgetting themselves in a last firebrand fling earthward, down the leaning helix of a standing breeze; to lie among the eagerer fledglings, earlier dead, daffodil to crimson webfeet imprinted on the icehard mud. Each single leaf…
for my Grandmother Nobody troubled you that last night, no one came. No daughter visited whose unrelenting care accused you of your deep need to have her there: child now to your own child, only your needling her (she could do nothing right) kept clenched your pride, yet left you needing her that much more….
1. Salmo gardneri, mercurially quick in a thin silverfoil fish-oilskin slicker, rash of rainbow raked along the sides, on a whiplash tack perpetually, tunneling through a headstream waterwall; then sinking down to dredge among the drowsing instars, silt, threaded algae, green-gelled light; planing up past clumps and globes of bubbles, a hovel stuccoed in pearls,…
At first you will know her as yours only by a vague contrariness That characterizes everyone else you love, among others you and myself. You will see in her your marriage — that is there will be more Of her mother than you thought you bargained for. You will find her set of mind, her…
Feeding the Birds Lured by unnatural feeding, by promises of plenty lavishly sprinkled and arced and scattered on cold weather, even the tufted titmouse has recently been known to loiter in the north here into winter. To feed or not to feed? The weather lady is careful, subtle, non-committal, anxious: “I’m sure more studies must…
I turn from the mirror to the garden where the December rose grows up orange above the wall. Soughing the grasses chinked in and threaded on its top — the wind displaces the still life of a great turf, like Durer’s. The great gray rain comes slanting down interrupting the museum in my eyes. Ars…
the soul, Remembering how she felt, but what she felt Remembering not (Wordsworth) When your post-War Plymouth rattled up to our eternal practice, and you vaulted the fence, we’d drift down from the wildness memory does not hold, still half sky from shagging day-long flies. Sweat-suited, someone’s father, you’d bawl “Men!” Did the future press…
I meant to be neutral until I saw the doors battered with axes and the windows gone. I thought the town would be just a town, fountains, public buildings, throngs of shoppers, drinkers in the pubs. The party walls between houses stood, their fireplaces open to the sky; and groups of men in caps and…
The wolf discovers his fur is changing: gone flat now, sleek as sealskin. Once grey, now hazel, his gaze holds past territory, past food to memory and meeting. A giraffe he approaches stares before bolting. Shrills of alarm through the jungle. He deserts the ancestors’ feeding ground. He grazes now, like another, calmer species. At…
Summer 2022 - Print