a morning-fresh aroma
from the compost
steaming in the cool air
i descend the mountain
just so i can climb it
yet again
through fog
as soft as the moss
acorns clattering down
the sun’s already out
in the valley for
the annual farm show
and above the gap
the first broad-winged
hawks of the day
spiral high around
morning smells like a burning hymnal
now that it’s afternoon
like a vast excavation
by archaeologists of the present
a blend of fresh earth and mildew
ozone and the blood of cut roots
if i were a dancer i would
know what to do
with this wild scent turning
into end-of-summer heat
as it is there are sun-drunk leaves
insects and vagrant warblers
and they seem to have
things under control
while i sit and try to be
a better place holder
Never having believed in happiness, it occurs to me, might have had something to do with why i never actively pursued it. If it showed up regardless, well and good, but in general, day-to-day contentment seemed enough. And you know, maybe it is. For far too many around the world, it’s an unattainable dream.
But what about love, Dave?
And you call yourself a poet!
Pleiades
syncopating
crickets
first let go of the obscurer wildflowers
the quadratic formula
the plots of novels
you’ll never read again
it gets easier the less
you cling to things
do you need to know for example
how to make fire
or small talk
or change
the stomach forgets milk
feet forget the ground
eventually one surrenders
time itself
to the blur of eternity
a cat sleeping in the sun
having lost the off-
spring in your step
you stare mutely back
at whatever comes
on a gorgeous morning
on an old woods road
that is itself lost
disappearing into the forest
finding again
that old quarry
where a chipmunk
has sunk a shaft
and a giant millipede writhes
her road-self
coiling and uncoiling
it’s cold
underfoot the piece
meal of it
what was once gray sand
now glitters under lichen
after dark the lunar
landscape of it
shivery with crickets
dense with ambiguities
the way bare wood weathers
or old snow collects grime
aging in place
lost in a maze of cracks
i have taken my micro
dose of humility
the high line buzzes
with ghosts of power
My favourite ridgetop tea-drinking spot is quieter each time I visit. Gone (or hiding while they molt) are the nesting tanagers and warblers. A wood pewee still calls, and a blue-headed vireo interjects at one point, but that’s about it. A nearby black gum has begun to color up, anticipating early migration and the need for signal flags saying FREE LUNCH.
fog walker
the millipede’s carpet
of legs
i watch from under
my umbrella
the complexly bladed ferns
dancing erratically in the rain
my feet and their forever
war on stasis
the ruts reasserting themselves
through fresh stone
i was only going
for a walk and now
i’m pondering the obligations of ferns
the prerogatives of feet
and the way a green tongue
snakes through everything
as if wisdom grew on trees
as if it were made of gray paper
swamp forest
hugging the bucket
of blueberries
blackberry patch
the secret beds
made by deer
in one summer how many
generations of aphids
chicory blueing the roadside
where a drive-in used to be
and the spindly trees
that stand in for angels
their green blades
for carving up the sun
so much more than we know
grows in a summer
sporangia like eyestalks
seedpods like space ships
and the mountaintop bleeds orange
where coal was stripped out
but we climb with
our mouths open
these days i wear wonder
like a broad-brimmed hat
when the moon is dead empty
i try to lose my shadow
i cut what i thought were tethers
they turn out to be roots
when i stop writing on paper
the trees become less hostile
i could swallow what’s left of my fire
and tend bees
i would write myself out of history
line by painstaking line
hot summer night
itching even where
nothing itches
wind from the west the sound of metal striking metal
I found a knife in the woods. Or more accurately, I found an old, tooled leather sheath for a knife with the remains of a hilt sticking out of it.