It's just another task, another tidying up.
Like pulling up last season's weeds,
Ripping out the eyes I saw with in
the summer, waving on their long stalks.
This movement is a turning, an effort
around the axis of the year, as I
balance an egg-shape of transformation--
of space inside me. If hope's a
feathered thing, I cannot yet tell
whether this shell contains a bird.
But my first inclination is to
another realm, glittering, airy
with the carapaces of insects
irridescent in the day that dies.
Who kept the long memory of ages
would know the fields of autumn
and call them with their truest title:
birthplace of the dragonflies.

how peaceful the rain

Put me in a painting from Japan.
Hiroshige, maybe.
I'll be a figure carrying water.
I'll push back my hat.
I'll say how lovely the sunrise looks
through the clouds around Mount Fuji.
And all of my extra lines will disappear,
the lines of hope, tangles of fear.
I'll be in the tender brushstrokes of a master:
quiet and serene as he loads ink on brush,
a curl of steam, his companion,
rising from the clay teacup at his side.
I'll be his creation while he makes ripples out of rain,
and then I'll carry home the bundle tied on my back,
sandals flipping away,
shedding the waters of contemplation.

green summer grass

Ah, the groans of summer
a lazy lawn-mower, shirt
left slung across the porch rail,
where a tall glass of ice water,
lemon and mint, sweats bright beads
of moisture in the afternoon shade.
The chlorophyll smell, grass greener
with two l's, fresh cool whisper
saying 'water, water;' lapping
little tongues of the earth's delight.

On Leaving

(a mostly all-right sonnet whipped up for an assignment)

When now I leave, I notice as before
On ent'ring these great halls, a muffled hush
Of memories that, piled years in store,
Weigh down with gravitas the students' rush
Past trees that grew from seed with wisdom's care
Down worn stone steps where generations trod
Through amphitheatre empty, where the air,
Expecting pomp and circumstance's plod
Resounds with mute, remembered happenings
Which can be heard extolling like a bell
Past students' joys and fears. Their dreams on wings,
Like mine are left to ghosts of mem'ry's well.
My footsteps' echo fades yet to new skies
I leave these walks familiar and arise.

souvenir de printemps

Past Danielle seems to be conversing with my present state, leaving hints and clues of what is happening now, premonitions of what is to come. This was written two years ago, April 16th, and is still true:
Every day of spring is better than the last. I love that about it. Each day I say, "This! Here! This is really spring! Today is the first day!"
And more flowers are unveiled and the sky gets more and more blue, and everything--even the air--becomes delicious.
Warmth, vibrant colors, the feel of grass.
It is almost easy to miss the changes on campus, because we are so walled in by buildings. I have to remind myself to look up, look around, look out, listen to those birds. And once you first start, you cannot believe the noise the birds can make, and it becomes amazing to you that anyone could sleep soundly through all that.
A week and a half ago, I drove my car off campus just to get away from school and to notice spring. It is hard to notice in the place where you spend all your time, like the way you don't notice that a friend you see every day has grown taller. There was classical music on the radio, WMHT I think, it was a cello concerto by Dvorak, and the strings became the telephone wires singing down the road, the pavement and later the dirt flowing out beneath my tires. I was driving because I didn't want to stop listening to the music, and while I drove anywhere, nowhere, I went, somewhere. It was a place where the music ran like sap through the veins of the trees and hints and promises and tempting glimpses of the finale appeared in the haze of flower and leaf buds. It is only in silence that a sound can exist and be observed, and perhaps likewise spring feels so joyous as a result of winter's hush and the stillness of snow. Spring would be diminished were there not the space and quiet of winter to anticipate its arrival. There is an injunction to stop, and wait, and observe what will unfold.

If we do some further archaeology, here is a poem scribbled on the margins of an article "The Trouble with wilderness" by William Cronon, 2 weeks prior to the above. It stands in response to a single line quoted from Owen Wister: "That moment in the year when winter is gone and spring not come, and the face of Nature is ugly."

The face of nature is not ugly
there are hints and happenings,
preparations for the spring, and the
gradual gathering of greenery behind the wings
it is so gradual that you don't know
until afterwards that it has been taking
place--you only know once spring
has sprung.
I want to fall in love that way,
the gradual budding and unfolding of the heart
until it seems so natural to open your
petals to the warm sun and blue sky,
and you are amazed that things could
be so green, and you, oblivious to the
change while it was taking place.
Every spring can only be the first
spring, the true one, all others buried in
layers of dust and dry leaves in the corners
of our memories, not quite as bright
and breezy as the one expanding
before us this moment.

Iceskating

There is that moment of fear
right before each skater lands;
your heart flinches to soften the
intended blow, tightens and
then releases with a sigh
as they land and float like
swans, across the frozen pond.

sensitivity

Right now I drink
the slightest sound.
I am a still pond
and my whole being
is dizzy with listening,
waiting, watching.
I am so wrapped up
in sensation, so wrapt
in my attention
the slightest dip of a robin's wing
is enough
to fill me completely.
I am a pregnant tummy
so full of my own being,
that funny egg-question of a soul,
tapping on the shell, hearing
echoes from the world, dreaming
of no time at all, resting
in the dark and quiet, changing
ever so softly.

Changing.

While the golden egg
of my mind waits,
I need not say or do
anything of import.
That waiting itself
holds a gift.
I will bear my mind's treasure
on some sandy shore
and swim back out
to the milky stars of silence.
I have no room for anything else.

wink

Here it is, the poem
towards the end of the book
about fireflies.


Go into the twilight.

autumn's ghost

Crisp sky and the crunch of gravel,
leaves slip through the air in an
evasive dance around my hands,
the scent on the wind hints at frost,
And the uphill climb stretches unused leg muscles.
My mind's eye sketches your outline
against the falling leaves,
tracing the ghost of your footsteps.
Your imagined presence warms me
as much as the climb
and a small hope twinges as the leaves
spiral through the space
where you could stand.
I keep walking, but I glance back
to watch the shower of yellow,
sundappled in the empty road.

Arrivals & Departures

I looked across the grey
water to where white wings
splashed on the grey sky,
and I thought how grey it
must all look to people in airplanes:
grey and sleeping.
And I thought how Liz would
have us, once she got off, and
it wouldn't be grey anymore for her.
And I thought that everyone
should have someone, you know,
for color. To brighten up
their grey terminals.

Just after 1

The unholy hours just after
one in the morning
are irretrievably tainted
with a wide-eyed
discomforting electric guitar buzz
the hoarse, desperately thirsty
tones of a blues riff
grinding somewhere
behind your eyeballs
as your common sense rages against
a buzz of a different kind
caffeine burning away at your soul,
baring mechanical clockwork
laboriously and painfully grinding out the latest
in a lone pocket of wakefulness
a pinpoint of halogen or fluorescence
holding vigil
against the enveloping sea
of unconsciousness.

Echo

This is a day for old songs.
Remembering where I've been
the eye stares at the hand
and wonders at its incomprehensible music.
Before, there was no barrier.
Now I am sitting in a rocker watching the world.
Now I am remembering.
How did creation flow through my hands?
Sensation unknowable.
The past rises up through my feet,
a dust cloud of moments
tangible, tinged with gold.
I exist to illuminate them
My little lantern-soul flickering
in the palms of these hands.
Come, let us tell the story again.

quite contented

Before breakfast at midnight,
We screamed in the snow
Then had a snowball fight,
Ate at my favorite SoCo.

We made awful puns
But I shouldn't complain
They think my humor's fun
And I've something to gain

Like maybe some pounds
From the tastiest food
But my laughter astounds
Who knew life was this good?

Rainforest, waiting

I should say I'm a fire hazard
Sugared petals, flames licking
Spontaneous whirlwind of
combustible crackling
lightning-eye silhouette
tinder-dry litter piling high
tense potential energy
pounding too fast
gasoline, along my veins
rich and incendiary
I have built this world from scratch
from half-formed, orphaned emotion
new hopes and joys,
utterly flammable, butterflies
still dusted
with creation. All my nutrients
bound up in the biomass
of the canopy. I am a
rainforest, waiting, for
the one I call enemy. Will you
light the torch and free me
to rage beond the borders of
your mind
fling open your doors and
stand terrified
as if you had no idea what
a fire could destroy, of yours,
in its unutterable self-destruction.
Don't strike a match, or
do you think you can stand that
close, feel the blaze of my hate
the glow, on your face, and still
retreat unravaged to the cool of the forest.

Do you remember waiting for the bus
in the early morning snow
smelled the frost and cold exhaust
frozen nose hairs (and the sharp
burst of cold air in your lungs)?
I was a dragon, mittened, bundled,
waddling, misting poison gass,
smoking like an absurd locomotive
in my bright ensenbleof primary colors
while the salt glittered with rainbows
of antifreeze on the pavement.
We did a dance so that our toes would not fall off
So happy to be zipped in up to our chins
mittens tucked up inside the sleeves
only waiting to shed all the layers
socks wet, hair tangled
everything un-tucked
when we come tumbling
inside from recess.
But the bus is still coming
childhood ambitions still unfulfilled
Castle forts are only the biggest snowbanks,
the lightning-speed rocket still only the playground slide,
packed down with snow.

Internecine

adj. destructive to both sides in a conflict.

Hidden wrath in a place of power.
So quick no one sees him draw his sword.
Who will inhabit the castle of bone
With life ambition's price to enter?
Unrelenting foe, immovable, unseen.
For you this is not a home but a
Battleground.

The beauty of a piece of fruit--
It's keen, awkward taste-angles,
Sauciness, round and rolling with juice.
The quirky mirth of mother earth.

questions of some import

I have assumed that I want to learn.
But what if I don't want to learn this fast?


The future is pain trying to be born:
Baby alligators gnawing at my flesh.
Why am I embodying future pains?
And will I be rent
For the alligators to swim free,
Waggling their tails?

What if I could be yours?

Could we spend an eternity of todays in a sailboat of dreams
power our wishes with marshmallows and love
the fattest clouds that we herd around us
bobbing onto the seas of tomorrow?

And would that be the better part of a life lived on the water?

there aren't any
small cookies in my pocket
unless you count crumbs

What could I say to the unfolding of my heart?
The sigh of wings unfurling
Flex yet be silent, and test the breeze.

Purr

No one would ever know what I took in the night,
the satisfaction and sleepy warm fuzzy feeling
I stole, or did it steal over me?
Can contentedness cover me the way a comforter does
so that I hum all over--
a cat that somebody has brought home.
I really like the furniture.