Bare Bones
too much to read,
much too much to read
I watch the leaves
falling from the trees
like words from the pages
of books the sun has written
I, too, am a book
that the sun has written
winter will be soon
and white and cold
I’ve lost track of what
I once may have known
I’m like that oak
becoming naked
I’ve lost track of most
of my questions
they’ve fallen from me
like leaves from a tree
I keep on reading
my way beyond me
I am the bare bones
of who I once was
Enantiomers
Don Quixote and Sancho Panza
enantiomers of a single compound
the right handed version
and the left handed version
the same in chemical composition
but breaking light differently
Myself, I’m a racemic mixture,
Don and Sancho, inseparable
Words For Waves
Words For Waves
If I were to compose words for waves,
I’d wander the shore, mile after mile, month after month
year after year as I changed ages, letting
the sun set on me and the moon rise on me
sometimes a scimitar, sometimes a golden eye,
and the stars stick their fierce pins into the sky,
letting the sun rise pink again on my pink flesh
I’d wander the shore and let my feet
be familiar of the wear of sand and of rock,
listening, listening, listening, for I’m certain
that the waves have a language all their own,
a way of speaking and making themselves understood
and I have always aspired to be their translator.
the importer of their ancient virgin truth
I’d leave the clouds to others, even though cloud
and waves are intimately connected as both are water
I’d leave the land, too, its vast barrens, and strange hewn
grotesque overweening ranges of mountains all to others
I’d keep my feet walking, listening, listening, listening
for the hint of a word in the thunder rumble
of huge breakers minted on the open ocean
Or perhaps it would be the fan of surf spray
that betrayed a clue in a random moment, a first word
confident of what came after though yet without form
the waves are connected to the deep, to the hidden skin
of the earth that was once surface, perhaps, then dove deep
into a soothing darkness, an immense quiet, a place to wait
and keep on waiting for whatever might come next
But suppose, after all my walking, all my wandering,
all my wondering, that the language of the waves
does not yield to me: what’s the harm in that, I love
to walk and to wander and to wonder and to take wind
on my cheek as I go and feel the flecks of salt it holds.
suppose the waves keep their secrets and exult in them,
then what a quest I’ve had when at last I crash and break
In My Appointment Book
In my appointment book, in my own handwriting,
the obligatory medical illegible scrawl, a notation,
for 1:30 PM October 10, 2011, Columbus Day, only
I can not read it. I discern something like M__id___,
but can not attach a name to this awkward rune
At 1:30 PM October 10, 2011, Columbus Day, I wait
eagerly for help in deciphering my own scrawl
to arrive in the form of a particular patient, solution
in the flesh to the mystery I have made for myself,
but no one, no one at all comes and mystery deepens
It is an unknown no one who comes, who fails me
in unraveling the knot I have tied for myself, the “not”
with which I have filled this particular time slot.
In more than a quarter century of practice I’ve not
done the like, never invented such a loose end.
Old Maps
When I was six, open air book stalls along the banks
of the gray green Seine, sold old maps, exotic, all fake,
that fascinated me for whom they were the genuine
doorways to an imaginary geography, the presence
of other places much more interesting than here
My father tolerated the spell I was under with mixed
indulgence and disdain, he let me look and look
and look and ask questions – “What language is this?”
“Do ships still sail here?” Does this island still exist?
“Why not?” he would ask, puffing out white smoke
Despite many trips, despite my yearning for these
talismans of voyages, despite hours spent looking,
spent comparing, spent investigating, we never
bought one of these maps, which made them ever
more precious, lodged as they were deep in my mind
Not only much older now than I was then, but much
older now than my father was then, I hold it all
as something ordinary, imperfect, yet magical,
the way we were together then along the banks
of the gray green Seine, as I imagined myself