I take us out to walk
in the rain
I suppose to shape
your character
but two is autarchic—
a litany of tribulation
as we walk along
runoff courses
in the gutter
and pools
on the sewer plate
so we fill it
with buttercups
then run away
June 9
can’t see the bay
but there’s a river in the sky
the world has gone gray
without distinctions
the ground slick with water
the air thick with water
traffic ground to a halt
ribbons of cars
suspended in motion
above nothing
a bridge is a structure
or something that makes
a connection
this is an assumption
and we’re getting
nowhere fast
June 8
early summer motifs:
i
something in the brush
heard but not seen
light conjecture
bird or beast
no conclusion is reached
and everyone proceeds
ii
there are multiple seasons
within the season
nothing blooms all at once
one buds one bolts one rots
even in the most manicured lawn
a wildflower is speaking out of turn
iii
it’s later than it seems
July said with certainty now
long-tongued shadows
a growing lingering heat
addled by the northern sun
we forget the hour
dinner is late again
June 7
When does desire
turn into greed
what is an appropriate
allotment of want
unseasonably muggy
in this forest
water has cut
a deep ravine
beneath cedar boughs
through carpets of moss
it funnels and pools
below perfunctory logs
and drops again
resisting direction
this is the work
it cannot be worked at
I know this well
and yet
June 6
a great displacement
by such a small bird
mostly beak
and jewel-hued neck—
all other motion
stagnant
below his arcs
craning to look
we are too late
he rifles each page
of the evening sky
etches out some new
invisible rune
cleaves air
from air
we duck again
as chunks of it
come crashing down
June 5
The heart is not here,
it can not, will not, be here—
in all this rain, more than
we’ve seen in several years.
A rabbit darts through
the overgrown lawn,
now gone to seed, each blade
a reproach. What hasn’t
been done, what can not,
will not. A sparrow ascends,
becomes untethered. Motion
is sometimes but not always
distraction. The clouds oppress
but containing is what breaks you.
In their garden beds
the radishes crack.
May 20
To wound the heart is to create it
I felt it flit across
the back of my hand
before I saw it
a fleeting shadow
a large spider
already gone
before the stomach drop
the untaught unease
I saw another stationed
on the orchid’s leathery leaf
another where the garden
abuts the foundation
another tracing the fall line
of the shower
I leave them alone now
some say age
make you less tolerant
but it is softening me like a blow—
house spiders
this as much their home as mine
and there are worse things
that linger unseen in the dark
May 16
not everyone does evil, but everyone stands accused
in the morning a dead spider
curled up and dried out
in a grave of sunlight
and dust
still small against
the floorboards
still mostly legs
and still a bit
off-putting
but less
without the menace
of motion
agency is what
we fear the most
May 15
The cold is a good counselor, but it is cold.
this is clear cold rain
no mists in this forest
just a deluge
increasingly insistent
saturated loam
and inundant bridge—
we walk on water
in water
one letter difference
sure, easily dismissed
but your feet still
get wet—
this the lesson
everything is as
it seems—
an earthworm
coiling in on itself
a question answering
a question
the gray river silt
the wind lashing
the osoberry—
there is no need
for justification—
the land slides
slowly and inevitably
down the bank
the bleeding hearts
trace the mud
with their petals
this day is cold
the rain makes it more so
May 12
the maple by the window
put out leaves
stretching down to the shrubs,
out to the pines, and aside
from all this rain
the house is dead quiet,
the living room sunken,
deluged, submersed,
and now
something weighty lit on the roof
but then took off
when I went to look,
and now
some robin singing,
unseen, calling out warnings
or conveying relief,
obscure, obscured
and suffused with green
OPTIONAL POETRY 