Back
I’m back from the past
where I kept calling my name
and no one answered
Bahia, September 2008
Red laterite hills
and blue ocean and green palms –
finding is losing
Low
Four hundred miles gone
a cyclone rules our atmosphere –
I’m low in the low
Futile
All things change – I’m changed
by my futile resistance
to each tiny change
High Breezy
High breezy blue sky
after the hurricane’s left,
moist depression gone
Tumbling Leaf
Single tumbling leaf
counterfeits a butterfly
orange wings unfolding
Virginia Creeper
Virginia creeper
in autumn – caught red handed
climbing the old oak
Stories
Fall – the leaf trembles –
does that white swan know any
stories of dying?
Death’s Forest
Beautiful fall day,
still green leaves against blue sky –
I walk death’s forest
Croak
High blue aching sky,
croak of the great blue heron,
leaf riding the wind
What
The darkness of light,
illusion that what I see
shows me what I am
Thinnest
Now’s the thinnest slice
of being, and all that is
or that ever was
Grackles
Migrating grackles
fill the crowns of the oaks
with black snow flurries
Passing
In early autumn
I intuit my winter
in each passing ache
Scaled
Scaled with shelf fungus
fallen cherry stretches out
in autumn sunshine
In The Stream
The white dog’s happy
in the stream, braces herself
against the current
Remembrance
The perch cardinal
just left is still quivering –
such is remembrance
Gray Question Mark
Gray question mark cat
fast asleep on the pink bench –
questions never sleep
Lift-Off
2 pileated
woodpeckers down on the ground,
then a loud lift-off
Blue Sky
How blue is this sky,
color of a robin’s egg,
all empty of clouds
Crisp
The cool of the nights
is luxury of autumn –
how crisp my mind is
Mind Games
When I wish it full,
my mind’s empty; when I wish
it empty, it fills
Spin
There’s no way to spin
October’s gold into words,
but a fool might try
October 17, Sixth Anniversary
I remembered and
forgot you all day long, you,
unforgettable
Buried Bulbs
Day of limpid light
I’m doing nothing at all,
less than buried bulbs
Round Trip
I am dust going
back to dust – all tickets
are round trip tickets
Blank
The printed letters
take sudden flight from the page,
leaving me a blank
Bleached
Bleached corn stalks emerge
from the morning mists as blind
and deaf as the dead
Crash of 2008
Nothing is the wealth
I have irreducibly –
nothing’s less than it
Wild Ride
New dryads’ saddles
another autumn’s wild ride,
smooth and firm their seats
Great Blue
Down river’s black back
golden leaves are floating now
past great blue heron
River’s Spine
Kingfisher chatters
up, down the black river’s spine –
he sheds blue beneath
Jurie, Novemeber 6, 2008
No memorial
save what’s lived inside me now
twenty long years gone
Of Grief
Memory of grief
and the grief of memory –
each lives in other
Embrace
Autumn’s an embrace
that holds me and all I’ve lost,
lets me find myself
Thick
Thick November fog
is balm – white anemones
gleam, close rooted stars
Mid-November
Blue jay under gray,
cardinal against stream’s black,
mourning dove quartet
First Snow
Swirling white petals
returning to bare cherry –
November’s first snow
Plotting
Fox rests quietly
in the vale of dreams, plotting –
the moon winks at him
Misty
Out of misty dreams
I rise exhausted – what took
it out of me, why?
Almost
Almost winter sunshine
makes this new snow dazzling white,
under a blue bowl
Hawk
The hawk comes and goes
murderous in its intent,
quite at ease in flight
Gusts
Hawk lights in tulip,
sits and sways with the wind’s gusts,
accepts sun’s caress
Stew
The stew of purpose
changes its ingredients
with each passing day
Juvenile
Hawk’s a juvenile,
white bellied against blue sky,
scanning the ivy
Zero
Oak leaf falls slowly,
degree of difficulty –
precisely zero
Near
Flicker’s on the branch
above the hawk – what do they
make of each other?
Afterglow
Afterglow of sun,
orange tongue in the mouth of night –
will dawn give it words?
Intimate
Darkness is complete –
I am left with my mind’s light,
most intimate sun
Surprised
I stumble into
my thoughts and then I’m surprised
to find myself there
Shade
The amber of tea
is the shade of autumn leaves
clinging to their trees
Work
It’s a lot of work
to know anything and hard
to keep from knowing
Strangest
The strangest darkness
is the one that lives in light —
as dust in snowflake
Backcountry
It’s the backcountry
of myself that holds me, so
I keep wandering
Rainy Day
Question mark cat tries
all the doors, hoping one has
dissenting weather
Mallards
Squadron of mallards,
drakes green headed as parrots,
ducks dun as the reeds
Dregs
Four-thirty twilight,
this year dwindling down to dregs –
how precious the light
Down
Moon climbs down an oak
so slowly and carefully –
raccoon passes it
Last Day
This last day of fall
I put an ink black beret
on my bald head, smile
Flint
Not quite all used up,
I’m flint that’s stingy with spark,
but can still start fire
Drab
Cardinal couple
in the bare dogwood, only
bright spots in the drab
Itch
I seek, but don’t know
what I’m seeking – curious
is the itch I am
Outcroppings
When I look around,
outcroppings of mystery
are all that I see