If tired of trees I seek again mankind,
Well I know where to hie me--in the dawn,
To a slope where the cattle keep the lawn.
There amid lolling juniper reclined,
Myself unseen, I see in white defined
Far off the homes of men, and farther still,
The graves of men on an opposing hill,
Living or dead, whichever are to mind.
And if by noon I have too much of these,
I have but to turn on my arm, and lo,
The sun-burned hillside sets my face aglow,
My breathing shakes the bluet like a breeze,
I smell the earth, I smell the bruisèd plant,
I look into the crater of the ant.
I await you.
People pass
and glance,
curious. I do not
mind; you may
arrive or you
may not. What I
have done, I have done.
nothing special
an empty birdhouse beneath
an overcast sky
bare winter prairie &
a little smoke rises
from an empty field
off center
the empty clay pot
beside the doorstep
Still no wind
this long dreary winter,
solitary bird.
I thought it
was you
turning in bed—listening
I know
it is just the rain, heavier.
First I’ve heard
in a long time—
breathe deep.
I rest easier.
Happily.
Floods?
I doubt it,
if so
we'll cope later,
in due time.
How she knows she is not useless yet:
Old cornstalks must be shattered right
Where they stood green, to feed worms
She knows are waiting in darkness.
Her hens wait too, for water, for feed,
Especially for deadnettles, nipplewort,
Kale and comfrey. Some hummingbirds
Now arriving check the lilac for their
Own nectar bottle that hung there
While last spring, summer and fall
Slipped past. There are wasp queens
She finds sleeping in her woodpile;
Her heart skips a beat as she sees
Each one, for she fears them, yet
Interests herself in their rest and
Safety, for the good they do her garden.
There are rooms in a life that may sometimes
Have someone in them; but they are guests there.
Even when one most loves, one may find,
Really, a solitude that begins at this wall,
Ends at that wall; the rest is not entirely ours.
As years turn and suns, moons and stars
Rise up and fall like rain by every window
Even one's hands will shrivel soon enough
Right at the ends of one's arms, as hands
Of strangers. But to fret at this discovery
Of emptiness arrived at and emptiness
Made clear by moon's dance with water,
Sun's dance with dust, by endings never sought
In even that one room that is one's own, is
Not worthy of even that we call our life.
All our guests deserve from us restraint.
She turned up the weeds without pity, spreading
their roots before the sun. Most of them died,
though a few tenacious grasses rolled over
when she was not looking, and sucked earth
till she found them skulking about, and banished them
to the heap with the egg shells and old tea leaves.
Returning to the scene of the massacre, she placed
a five-tined fork before her, pointed toward
the earth's core. On its step she placed her boot's
sole, and drove its teeth home, tearing living soil.
She did this many times, and in her hearing,
the dark loam whispered in protest. But what
was she to do? One must eat, and the white seeds
in their packet were waiting for the sun.
She carried a blue denim bag at her side,
You showed me
the door. Now
I am alone
in wilderness.
Ah! That then
was kindness.
The musk-ox smells
in his long head
my boat coming. When
I feel him there,
intent, heavy,
the oars make wings
in the white night,
and brave woods are close
on either side
where trees darken.
I rowed past towns
in their black sleep
to come here. I passed
the northern grass
and cold mountains.
The musk-ox moves