Orange Pendulum
That orange pendulum
is just one leaf suspended
from a spider’s thread
17 Year Cicadas
Do the cicadas
underground know that they’ll surge
awake this next spring?
Abundance
Acorns drum the roof,
announcing the abundance
of which squirrels dream
Just The Fourth Monarch
Just the fourth monarch,
resting orange, black on milkweed,
I saw this morning
Self Same Hue
Cherry tomato
and high far rare reddish Mars
share the self same hue
Surf
The wind finds in oaks
a sound like surf, wild waving
of paper-thin green
So You’re Gone
So you’re gone, mother,
whom I never quite knew, since
you weren’t quite you
First Shock
The first shock has passed,
so that I can begin to grieve
with the falling leaves
Rolling In Offal
Rolling in offal,
the happy dog knows nothing
of this week’s events
Anxious
It made you anxious
to get near me, when I was
small and free and me
Tod
You had lost the will
to live long ago, but you
still loved being towed
Absence, Absence
I can’t find you now
in my mind – absence, absence –
that’s you in my mind
Your Mother’s Voice
Near the end you had
your mother’s voice and went slack
as she to be free
October Dogwood
A pool of scarlet,
near blood red, is a dogwood’s
image in fall lake.
Rare Distinction
One in ten million
were the odds you’d die of this –
a rare distinction
Branch Of Red Leaves
A branch of red leaves
is painted on the full moon
and stirred by the wind
Lake’s Lead
Skin you, dying, sloughed
returns as patches of mist,
white on the lake’s lead
Dying
Inexpressible
as the full moon setting now
is dying, the end
Tiger Stripes
Unafraid of frost,
a tiger striped bee hovers
over yellow leaf
Dead Crow
Ink as black as night’s,
crow becomes hieroglyphic
lying dead just here
Golden Haze
Sun turns morning mist
to golden haze in which fox
appears, then is gone
Mitochondrion
Mitochondrion,
tiny power plant, inscribed
with Ma’s initials
Oak Lake
Hollow fallen limb
has filled with water, made birds
a lake to swim in
Yellow Leaves
The yellow leaves now
are like a flock of gold birds
impatient for flight
Toad Lilies
The toad lilies start
early in spring, explode now
like autumn orchids
Fall Light
Fall light is itself
almost elegy, golden
with ripe remembrance
Like Water
Years flow like water,
silent, no clue where they go,
how they dissolve us
Earth’s Hold
Now I get it – earth
holds what was, what’s to come, all
the particulars
White Dog Prophecy
White dog, prophecy
of snow and memory, too,
trots in fall’s rainbow
Other
I always meant you
to be other than you were,
just as you did me
Nothing Inside
If I reached inside,
found nothing there, would I grasp
its rare, spare splendor?
Sky Of Cream
Sultry autumn day
waiting for rain to begin
from a sky of cream
Without Wrinkles
White is everywhere
as snow smooths the view – I see
you without wrinkles
Too Modest
Too modest to have
any sense of homecoming
a red leaf hits ground
Here
Here in the moonlight
I’m writing in the presence
of the subtlest shades
Each Death
Each death makes me feel
more vulnerable, closer
kin of earth, air, night
Lack
Our lack is our luck –
we need emptiness to fill
and silence to speak
Father Bloom
In the golden light
of painted autumn, father,
your face blooms in mine
Summer’s Ghost
Autumn’s summer’s ghost,
but bright robed, gay, until its
fingers turn to ice
Indian Summer
Indian summer
in all its glory – red men
everywhere unseen
Gunpowder River
Gunpowder River
cold as a rifle barrel
flows dark into dawn
Free Travel
Letters travel free
on the wings of butterflies –
they stand for nothing
Basking
Against bright blue sky
one bronze leaf now floats slowly
down from sycamore
Oversight
Half moon oversees
Indian Summer twilight –
I send smoke signals
Moon Lasso
Smoke wisps from my fire
to try to lasso the moon,
is lost in wide night
Death’s Name
How to say death’s name,
but with a caress, sweet sense
of how it holds me
Born Anew
To feel the same things
over and over until
they are born anew
Orange Butterflies
Two orange butterflies
flit across the river Styx,
turn to leaden mist
Fifteen Years 1988-2003
The old disaster
still lives in me, wakes, worries –
my life holds your death
Painted Leaves
Painted leaves like words
are wind blown and then lie still,
heaped in memory
Green Curtain
Green curtain’s lifted –
this lake shimmers in blue stripes
between trunks of ink
Green Rhinoceros
Rhinoceros horns
of spring’s skunk cabbage peer green
through fall’s brown cover
Tack
That last leaf, frozen
on a white sycamore branch,
tack stuck in blue sky
Happy Barking
The white dog’s happy
barking at a squirrel up
a tree, out of reach
River’s Black Tongue
The river’s black tongue
rolls on through rainy autumn
speaking to no one
Complex Pitchforks
Like complex pitchforks,
the bare sycamores impale clouds
on their shining tines
North Wind
Geese near shore I watch
through a veil of bittersweet
while a North wind roars
Brown Of Deer
Brown of deer is brown
of leaves on the forest floor,
but with leap added
Black Clouds
Black clouds in the west
have taken the massive shapes
of migrating whales
Zebra Flanks
Shadows stripe these hills
to zebra flanks – the herd is still
as I walk through it
Practice
Oaks sway and rustle
while overhead a lone hawk
practices circles
Noguchi
Massive fallen oak
propped on one limb throws a dark
gate across my path
Signatures
I miss my parents
their signatures in the air,
both fond and foolish
Snowy North
Shira, the white dog,
is melody in movement,
song of snowy North
Dawn
Today at dawn, sun
crouches in bare woods, waiting
to spring with bright fangs
Three Geese
Three geese are honking
a trio across the lake
in clean autumn air
Imagination
Does white dog wander
in her imagination
as she does in mine?
Rainbow
Grief is a rainbow
that can never span from here
to far lost sweet there
A Gem
Sorrow condenses
like carbon under pressure
to become a gem
Legacy
Breath is not conquest,
but how I burn just to be,
become legacy
November 23, 2003
Fifteen years ago
today you died and my world
went as still as lead
My Own Garden
I’m my own garden,
a plot to cultivate
green shoots in earth’s dark
Red Ember
A cardinal is
a red ember (remember)
amid the arched thorns
Names In Fire
If I wrote your names
in fire across the night sky,
you’d still sleep in earth
Mounds
My feet caress each
mound I cross – it just might be
you sleeping life off
Flight Of Bluebird
Swift flight of bluebird
over water, startling as
the sky in motion
Toreador
At dawn, the black cat
chases its tail, is both bull
and toreador
Bowed Evergreens
After two days’ snow
this evening comes softly down
on bowed evergreens
Jagged
Grief is the record
of disappointment, how life
found a jagged path
Remedy
Once imagining
knows it rules nothing, it’s free
to be remedy
Appendix
Shadow of a hawk
on snow, shadow of hawk’s prey
appended to claws
Out From Under
Emerald green grass
comes out from under white snow,
stares up at blue sky
Yellow Pansies
After the snow melts,
the yellow pansies it crushed
are bright sunlit fans
Author Of Light
Who is the author
of light, the painter, dreamer,
the singer of stars?
My Kinsmen
Trees are my kinsmen
who stand and stand, lift and lean,
drink in water, light
Word’s Worth
The worth of a word
depends on the living it
holds and that holds it
Like Wine
Like wine, ruined hopes
age and grow beyond themselves,
found another realm
Swirling Flurries
Herself snow’s color,
the white dog has no shadow
in swirling flurries
Bloom Of Light
A few words for what
can’t be said – the bloom of light
on a new day’s stem
Applause
Applause is the sound
as a dark wheel of coots lifts
from this cold blue lake
Flickers
Marsh is lit gray gold,
with ice patches here and there,
flickers in the trees
Partake
Partake of sorrow?
I’ve drained cup after cup, know
I’m myself the grape
Plates Of Ice
White-lined plates of ice
now have formed where puddles were,
bringing grace to mud
Still Toothed
White bare lower jaw,
still toothed, gleams through the leaves
at black base of pine
Snow Flakes
Swirling on the lake,
a flock of gulls, snow flakes which
can’t finish falling
Already
Where the deer’s hooves make
marks in the sand, writing has
already begun
December 21
Stillness and glint, lake
wearing new made ice collar,
pine scent, squawk of ducks
Not Basho
When Basho surprised
the frog, he was not Basho,
nor even the frog