Forty-Seven
Wading that far
river, turning over
stones for caddis
flies unborn,
you met no one —
not even me.
Poems on the topic: solitude
Poems on the topic “solitude” on Poets.by.
Five
I walk along
the ridge crest
with nothing in my hands.
Where are you now?
and how is it
I am alive here —
as snow begins
to fall?
Twenty-Eight
In white silence
my muffled boots
made rounds.
Where I looked,
I saw no tracks
but mine.
Eighty-Six
At midnight
the bobcat stepped
through ferns
to watch the
hickory-bark
fire with me.
Aviary
The eight-year-old boy can’t reach the first branch of the
largest of a pair of Maples in the front yard so he settles
for the lowest branch of the smaller tree. He easily pulls
himself up into the first crotch and pauses there, planning
his route to the top of his favorite aviary. He knows each
branch like the back of his hand, every step, every
handhold. He starts to climb, one limb at a time.
As the boy ascends, the branches get smaller and more
flexible. He can feel himself now swaying gently in the
wind. He can almost (but not quite) poke his head out of
the leaves at the top of the tree before he’s forced to stop
climbing. Here he tucks a leg into the fork between two
branches and settles in.
January Solitaire
Lay out a patience
(Winter has come down.)
Watch logs in a fireplace
disarrange into orange dice.
(Next year regulations
will prohibit burning wood.)
“Try again, Sir Tommy.”
(Desperation is one parent
of whimsy. The other is unknown.)
Best not to count the times
you look out on the gray and sigh.
(“Quantitative judgments do not apply.”)
A Bar at the Folies-Bergere
If you're interested, the mirror
will show a flat, brilliant image
of our lustrous clutter, of much
white flesh draped in black, of
green bottles, brown bottles, other
mirrors, crystal, lanterns, jewels—
glass and gems we’ve arranged
as a barricade against dawn.
The woman behind the bar lets
her gaze wander until you express
your pleasure. She wears black
velvet trimmed in lace, a brooch
depended on a black ribbon,
a golden bracelet on her arm.
After you order, your gaze wanders
to the mirror behind her. There her
Spirit
The spirit survives
its changing form, like seeds sown in autumn
anticipating
the promise of flowers blooming in spring.
Or a chance wind
sweeping starlings to flight, to grasp at life
to flake the air like soot
the ambiguity of then and now confused.
The present etches
the surface like riddles scribbled in sand,
the past burnished
with pain illuminates the future.
Seeking solitude
spirit transcends time and space, embracing
life in all its forms
the earth, the waves, the flames of the universe.
Water Music I
You flow, you do not understand,
The spring has eked you out of the earth.
You fell from the storm, you barely coalesce
Before the journey begins.
A gust of wind from a cloud’s dead eye
Blows you onto the clay of the north.
A pond, where the spawn of a million frogs
Grope in the steam of batrachian suns.
At the end, a hesitant stream.
Gentle, the grass barely parts in your path.
By noon, you lay blind in the sun’s deep maw.
You fear you are the plaything of the world,
A god whose cruelty is your solitude.
You flow, you do not understand,
You cannot feel your strength.
The folly of your winding way.
Hokku 65
I turned my face not to see
Flowers or leaves;
'Tis the autumn eve
With the falling light.
How solitary the cottage stands
By the sea!
Hokku 30
Bits of song . . . what else?
I, a rider of the stream,
Lone between the clouds.
Faithless
The words you said grow faint;
The lamp you lit burns dim;
Yet, still be near your faithless friend
To urge and counsel him.
Still with returning feet
To where life's shadows brood,
With steadfast eyes made clear in death
Haunt his vague solitude.
So he, beguiled with earth,
Yet with its vain things vexed,
Keep even to his own heart unknown
Your memory unperplexed.
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