Meditative
sitting makes me an anchor
alone in a desert
open to a joy beyond myself
that I see as water
and me with my captain
settled in port
Contemplative poems
Contemplative poems — a collection of the best works on PoemShip.
Penn’s Creek riddles
A dark waterfall of fur
slipping down the rocks at
the river’s edge, soft yoke
no neck will ever wear.
Though green, I am no plant.
Two kingdoms live in me, but no ruler.
I’m a colonist of places
where nothing else can survive.
Death comes to the hemlock trees
in grayish white clots the size of pinheads.
Soledades
who could be whole
all alone
and not fight with some
possible faction
in the mystery of
his possible mind
or let his body suffer
another great love
we shall all be sunk
after plundering for imperfections
who having seen a sea
stays at home
Bus-y
up and off her busy din again
the late bus home
Farm workers
out on the farm we see
the weight of the present
take pains to deserve
a bit of rain
green as the sea
having spent hours killing
Limited
I know what I know
to be false
how things in the hand refuse us
gives me comfort
a thought should be worth
one wing
A matter of interpretation
I am translating a library into hands
is time a prison or a garden
are trees letters to the night
Apophasis
no creed
pleased me like music
though my own road
is a wound
I saw mortality touching all things
but the night
not knowing is an art—
a black one
Walking therapy
who is in mourning
who with an ear is not
but not seeing how to help it
I walk to the park
to the great elm
and walnut filled with stories
and in a ruined garden
a little girl singing
Practice makes perfect
I am at any time
ready for vacation
practicing to be simple
imagine the prizes we desire
in the present
this very body prepared
for his journey
down in the grave
Three short poems to inaugurate a new pocket notebook
ravens
climbing into
each other’s sky
circling crying
out
above the road bank where
the hepatica has just come into bloom,
the corpse of a porcupine
carrion beetles clamber
through the quills
butterflies cluster on what’s left of its mouth
a hole spanned by the long, curved
railings of its teeth
& down below, the pale blue blossoms
swaying on their stems
Instructions for fate
writing no in a green book
in rooms which are not yet
ready for us
writing let me be
Describe a feeling — we’ll find a poem
Or try: