One Cardinal
I always wonder
why one cardinal does not
set the woods on fire
Tiny Drab
Such tiny drab birds
have such sweet lavish voices –
I’m non-descript, too
Last Light
Last light of the year –
pink oak trees reach for the sky –
I’m both young and old
Winter Rain
Winter rain, steady
from sky as gray as the hair
that’s left on my head
Sixtieth Year
My sixtieth year’s
around the corner, I wish
I could bend light, see
After The War
Just after the war,
I was born, who knew nothing
of its strife, horrors
Grief Rebuilding
The war became part
of me and each breath I took
was grief rebuilding
Fifty Nine
Fifty-ninth birthday,
walking in snow with white dog
under a gray bowl
Understand Me
Understand me – light
changes instant to instant
and so does seeing
Dry Snow
The dry snow has stopped,
waits for the night wind to come
to shift it, sculpt it
First Star
Quiet of the night
as snow waits for the first star
to slip through the clouds
Black Nose
White dog disappears
into whiteness of the snow,
black nose left behind
All I Say
All I say is said
in passing, some chance remarks
before night takes me
Lapse
What I imagine
I am is less what I am
than my lapse from it
Indecent
All of this odd life
is indecent exposure,
how sun devours me
Young Crow
What a young crow knows
it knows deeper than its bones –
genes make tool making (Nature 13 January 2005 page 121)
White Antlered
The stain of shadow
on the smooth surface of snow –
oaks, high, white antlered
Still On Snow
White dog barks the bark
she saves just for foxes, barks
and is still on snow
All Love’s Lie
A cemetery
is what I am, place of rest,
where all love’s lies sleep
Frisbee Of Ice
A frisbee of ice
has formed in dog’s water dish –
I send it flying
Older
I’m getting older
day by day and all I know
is still not knowing
Deft Death
Deft death, Dad, unstitched
your shadow from your heels, brought
it to live with me
Escape
I’d like to escape
my own form, my only form,
flit from my own fit
As Alive
You are as alive
for me now as when you lived,
maybe less reserved
North Wind
Tips of the bare oaks
finger a powder blue sky
as the north wind blows
As Flu Flies
Oceans away ducks
are incubating our fate
as a fierce flu flies
Swan
Suddenly a swan
is what you were the first time
all those snows ago
Midwinter
The sun is liquid
in midwinter – I drink gold
from a snowy cup
Dead Fox
Dead fox on the path
down by the lake – reddish brown,
small, precise and still
Eleven Bluebirds
Eleven bluebirds
perched in sunshine by the lake
while ice melts, mutters
Blue Early
Blue early spring sky
makes the world a robin’s egg,
just waiting to crack
Echoes
Downy woodpecker
finds such different echoes
in just one dead limb
Woods
Woods make me happy –
I have no idea how
and that’s part of it
Creekside Sycamore
Creekside sycamore –
old Iseult of the white hands’
got nothing on you
NYC
New York, where I went
fifty seven years ago
to board my first ship
Bluebird
Bluebird over snow
with a red blush on his chest –
spring’s not far away
Shadow Barred
White dog in fresh snow,
her face shadow barred as she
trots through bare thickets
My Fatigue
More birdsong, more light –
intimations of fatigue
under white eyebrows
Unlike
I’m wondering why
why do I bother to speak,
quite unlike the pond?
Sudden Weakness
A sudden weakness
overcomes me as I start
to remember when…
This One Window
I’ve been looking out
this one window so long I
see through what I see
Here!
I am what I am,
only this, so lonely, too,
broken open – here!
Cell Phone
Rachel, in the woods
cell phone let me talk with you,
brightened the birdsong
Litowa, Tanzania
There in Litowa,
what made me so feverish
I knew I could die?
Simple Things
These things were simple
until I got to live them –
love, birth, death and hope