Poetry

Let’s start at the very beginning.A very good place to start. Nothing but a hum. That’s howit goes. Expecting a thought, getting an ellipsis. In the morningmy son thrills at flipping the light on, then off, then on, then off again.Shrieks of joy, then on to the next adventure. Jump-starterof sparks. Where is the light?…

When sadness settlesin, more intractable than usual—when it takes more pains to make itselfknown— I tell my sisters not to worry.I will garden the sadness away. I decideon a raised bed, staining the cedar planksI stack into walls that form a newlack. I order loam and compostthe man with the pickup calls gorgeous. Do we…

Long before Francis,St. Isaac of Syria welcomed creaturesgreat and small. My kind of saint,he said that Hell might not last—Godcould end it. What if Isaachad stepped in, held his hand upto my father, said No! Stop! Would Istill be this tree split by lightning,sending out shoots of greenagainst all odds?

Planes rise from the neighbor’s Norfolk pineAs if floating. Sometimes I float tooIn the brilliant afternoons of not-knowing.As the aftershock of the infusionsLays me back in the cloud of the recliner,I stare with fierce new interestFrom our glass-walled living roomAt the world that always continues.I sleep these provisional days, dreamingOf flight, up and over the…

Red brick textile mill justbarefoot steps from red brickcompany store, and barefootsteps from red clay graves, the apparition childrenmake their hazy way upthe hill at 6:30, quitting timeafter twelve-hour shifts. Maybe they are doffers,small, nimble fingersa commodity in the riskyremoval of spike spindles, bobbins full of spun fiber,replacing them by hand whilemachinery whirrs. Maybethey tend…

Do butterburs follow a religion,a particular day of the week whenthey take time to meditate or prayinstead of photosynthesize?What does a butterbur believe in—a single God or as many higher powersas exist in the clouds of a mackerel sky?Which spiritual realm lies in the shadeof their stems, their wooly under beards?In the sway of leaves…

from El Cielo En Nuestro Ojos :: An Ecological Inamorata Poem Pulse We look at mud. Marine sediment cores, scientists call them. Overfifty thousand trays, each eight feet long, adorn the mud library inthe Palisades of New York. Here the language of sediment traces.Language of shells that compact inside a microscopic window. Aren’twe all windows of some sort. Glimpses. The curator…

I’ve admired how they leave littleshells of self clinging to bark or edges of jagged leaf, their swarms pacing flightin packs of years. Imagine, every decade an upheaval. Farmers would knowof their coming yet could not stop it, the dark whirring cloud which upon passingbrought a homelessness that beat to bone. I could hear them…

Sonofagun, what a rambunctious sun!— Flaunting its feather boa of cloud, it’s Done with slumming behind the horizon,  It blazons and hastens the birds to what’s  Blooming. Our backyard’s a carnival,  Carmine and cardinal, ripe apricots  Chandeliering on breezes, ambrosial, And in this light I believe everything On this bright and ruinous earth, animal   Or vegetable, is a wonder, a blessing Made…