Poets’ Corner
GOLD OR GLORY
Me once: slumped in a deckchair out the back, Reading a wholesome Reader’s Digest book Which told the story of Heinrich Schliemann Gazing upon the face of Agamemnon – Only, he hadn’t; his discovery Went further back than that. My own history Had its funeral mask – hardly gold, rather The skin over the cheekbones…
Woman, Tree, Rain
At the corner of Church and Fair, in rain she pauses, cool in the invisible and rainless room below her umbrella… The low, wide Japanese tree’s elegant. Its salmon maple leaves are rained to red, Its splay of spindles slicked to jet by rain… Its bonfire burns the rain, and all the world Seems thirsty-eyed…
Rocks and Stones
For what is lumpen ore no more Cold forged and grey upon The darkened smithy floor Now Irradescent is the heart Of one that loves, and yet No longer has to play a part For whom there be but one port, One harbour, one perfect creation Who from lifeless clay was wrought. One light at…
Covenants
Whole townships flooded as prodigal hosts survey ruined Decoration Day wreaths— and as I never could help but count the ghosts in TVA lakes, their basin museums reefed with antediluvian husks (a schoolhouse, tobacco hooks, two ox-tongues), strange priests wavering rusted fronds in the Cumberland, its sediments eddied with curls traced tight, so each morning…
Jeanne d’Arc
People are like dinner glasses Born long laid dusty Time slowly spins them Round in wash of water and cloth Till dripping full of soapy years they reach their age of translucence. Yet you shattered young, Flûte à France What life within would Wrinkles echo forth? Would we see England’s Joan, rancor Calcified, sagging maniac, Or…
A Young Hummingbird
A young hummingbird approaches my feeder, Wings a flash of anxious silver, Grimly eyeing me, the giver Of the gift of glinting nectar. Head aswivel, tensely twitching, Guarding his own greedy sipping, As if worried, maybe wondering When I’ll snatch back all he’s loving. Frantic bird with frantic trill, Ever-moving, ever-shrill, Maybe someday we both…
BRIEF VISIT FROM A RAINY DAY
Tires on wet pavement whooshing, wavelike, by. Raindrops, in their staccato rhythm, tapping Blurred windows. Morning barely half awake. A recently arriving rainy day, When a small girl— Still, green-blue eyes and almost yellow hair, Warm in her raincoat, backpack on her back, Riding the bus to school—watches the rain, Watches black puddles, splashed by…
Blue Heron by the Pond
With sunlight on his plumage, noble stance, he’s fully grown, a handsome specimen, ideally formed, by some design or chance— exemplar of the avian citizen. He’s quite alone; he wants no company Immobile, his attention occupied by possibilities I cannot see below, he rules the grassy berm, with pride, you’d say. For him, it is…
Whitsunday
Three days before the mystery of Whitsun A large tree across the road cracked in half The wind too much for its dried trunk As two men brought hedge clippers and a saw, Insufficient in tackling the mess, Looked for some time but finally left it Branches loosely strewn, uncut and ungraved Like an homage…
From Solitude
A mother to her daughter Gazing out over the water: ‘Back up you come, honey.’ I would not be without The love that puts paid to doubt For lust nor money. My sense of you is thorough As church bells rouse Hillsborough And the children play – Like the sudden certitude That saved us from…