Waiting on the weather
report. Come dawn
we’ll know better
but for now it’s
unseasonably warm.
Which makes these words
unreasonably harsh.
Why burden your burden?
You sink stones in mud
to step on, a way across,
why be mean to your means,
unless you seek an end?
Mark it
the world is opening up
again
even the night
is lightening up
the late light golden-green
the hour squall-hued–
you come in and ask
why am I just sitting
in the dark?
A quiet room invites
recollection
the scent of rain
the sense of it, also
the sheen of it on plate glass–
I’m watching till it’s over
Punctuation. Pedantry.
It’s not a question but
a wall, impermeable
by design. The forecast
has been wrong all week;
I anticipate wrongness now
like expecting rain, the hail
that fell for hours, you
can tell it will by
the color of the sky,
or at least I thought
you can, that doubtful
gray superimposed
on blue. Hard rain
that doesn’t roll off,
the wind compels it,
impels it. And falling silent,
do I repel, or welcome it?
Birds scatter,
lacking surface tension,
cohesion.
They barricaded
the sidewalk, but only
on one side,
turning back it said
DANGER. Even a shrug
would be too decisive.
Nothing sticks,
an oilcloth sky,
raindrops and seagull
droppings. Could have been
much worse, but wasn’t
we ran through a forest
at night
an unfamiliar road
an unfamiliar night
anything can be foreign
depending on context
.
back-lit windows
as heavy-lidded eyes
monstrously large
behind the trees
.
a car passing quickly
a thought that won’t settle
that’s not a bird
it’s a bat
Sometimes forget
and write September,
or some long-past year,
the moment’s default,
multiverse–
Somewhere it is
September, somewhere
it’s still summer, yesterday
bluebird at the beach
and honeysuckle–
a wash of memory,
clean sweep of tide,
a commuting.
The effect is gentle,
soft as this breeze,
yesterday’s breeze, still
a breeze somewhere, or
what will become another,
conservation,
so cleanly seen, forget
and write conversation,
again clarity in lapse
of memory, saying
what I didn’t know
I meant, surpise!
suddenly as clear as sky
Frowned upon to write about dreams
but I want to say how
the wild things arrived,
hares, wildcats, hawks–
not dangerously– estatically.
The subconcious colors the world,
if neccessary, decadently–
It was a tapestry
how they came down
from the trees, in medias res,
the way dreams go,
my childhood home,
summertime with wolves,
no fear, just floating
from the same lack of gravity–
not obeying logic,
but following something,
some unnatural orders, and happily
Too icy to leave,
weekend in town,
a radio on somewhere,
drowsy, staticky,
non-descript winter, truly
in the thick of it. Each
year it still comes as a surprise.
Transitory states:
is this wet snow,
or cold rain?
And why make distinctions?
Strange dreams this morning,
late to the Christmas party,
searching for a seat.
Today is the day they’ll take
the tree, make a note of it,
the birds in the hedge
by the dryer vent,
singing brightly, incessantly,
in the sweet, warm fog,
like breath, but not,
but again, why shouldn’t it be?
Trying to use the produce
before it spoils, the milk
a lost cause, dust rueful
on the mantle. So easy to think, if
only– but each year knows better,
better. How does the cilantro
just liquify? It’s cool
in the refrigerator.
What lasts and what does not?
Salt and biterness, but you can’t
cure a life. Maybe preserve it,
depriving it of air, and light,
keeping it for the sake
of possession, the fear of loss.
Dog star, always there,
in the dog days of summer,
in these winter hours
that pass like small lifetimes,
secret, still, enclosed.
I forget sometimes
that being a tide
involves wide margins,
sea changes, rushing in
and reticence in equal measure–
never ever there
but always moving towards it.
Dog star, still there,
waiting faithfully
at the edge of the horizon.
Not a portent. Not an omen,
but maybe an answer to some
unspoken longing.
OPTIONAL POETRY 