Where is my mother now who told me once when it was the 1970s
that life is to be questioned but not necessarily rejected,
who showed me how to enthuse from a place of doubt,
who wanted only the best for me though she had less,
who laughed till tears came and never let me see her cry,
who was the careful editor in a storm of imperfections,
who asked and gave,
who wished and accepted,
who stood for the beacon of art that showed both her and me
the way to reach and stay, in some kind of peace, home?

 

August 1 2023

Teachings

 

Miss no chance to be still.

Lean against the sink while you brush,

don't roam

into the sickening maelstrom of sights

that remind you why you should fear.

Don't yearn for your worry stone.

Take it from the pocket where it waits.

Feel its softness,

Test its minor heft,

Smell the stone aroma,

Touch it to your tongue, if you dare,

and listen to its heart.

No far-off waves, just you.

 

August 6 2023 

 

 
Let's consider now the things
that no one must control.
I'm thinking particularly of leaves
on sidewalk maples.
Sure, the town must tend the branches,
but these green messages need no censor.
Ignore the half-built houses with so much left to complete;
that's not your job. Watch the gulls instead, because
you can't keep them from their errands.
All you can do
is admire the color of their wings.

August 18 2023

 
Like the silver of a mirror
peace has been there all along
behind the mad reflections
of all the riotous years.

August 12 2023

 
When winter comes,
I’ll need a replacement
for bird song on my walks.

(Ask me said the wind,
and I will bring you more.)

August 13 2023

 
Big hawk taking the turn
down past the shadowed trees to her impatient nest
doesn’t give a damn about metal bats
clinking in the field below,
so strangely mown with nothing on it but humans.
No chance for rabbits there till later,
and meanwhile the children yammer
for one more rodent
even a bat
she doesn't have right now.

August 10 2023

 
I need a new dog because
I can't live without a dog because I
can't live without a dog because I can't
live without a dog because I can't live
without a dog because I can't live without
a dog because I can't live without a dog because
I can't live without a dog.

July 12 2023

Taking Leave

 
He’s heading into the past
at twice the speed of time.
If two souls fly apart,
each at the rate of one moment per instant,
how long before they are too distant
to ever greet again?
d/(s1 + s2) = t
0/(1 + 1) = 0
It’s academic.
Even as he turned, it was too late
for me to carry him piece-way.
But maybe there’s a shortcut
in a book we’ve both read,
that I can take to meet him.

Note: According to my parents, to carry someone piece-way
in Liberia is to accompany that person for a short
distance at the beginning of their journey.
It is—or at least used to be—a common courtesy shown
to guests leaving one’s house.

August 19 2023

 
Walk, drive, or ride to the mountain.
You remember going there,
but not clearly what it was like,
and you saw only the foothills anyway.
You never reached the tree line
where the world turns into something other.
When the family at the high plantation welcomed you,
you lost your balance in the clouds
(did the hillside tip too far?),
and for a long time after you were cursed with vertigo.
You were unprepared then, and maybe too young.
Now at last you might be ready to climb.

September 8 2023

Train to NYC

Some back lots speak of empty afternoons,
the dark of dawn, and countless nights
scored by winter’s claws
and ravaged by idiot summer.
To live the desolation of those spaces is,
thank God, impossible;
the train keeps passing on to the next
and next,
and gone is each arena
where the barbarous hours murder.
All you can bear away is your own endurance.
Let those alien places stay
behind to bear their own.

September 23 2023

Yellow gingko leaves.
Together a sudden fall.
Earth is their heaven.

December 2 2023

Bird on slanted wire.

One flirt of wing, then stillness.

Morning, teach me peace.

December 29 2023

I would name all my dogs for the winds.

Sirocco, Khamsin, Buran, Gilivar.

I would name my cats the same.

Shamal, Alisio, Zonda, Coromuel.

There are enough to last me to my end.

Chinook, Nigeq, Bora, Leveche.

They are forces of nature,

and so are they,

and so are they.

August 25 2023

Crusoe

Right now I just want to drift.

Tomorrow I will go ashore,

walk up the beach,

and figure out how to build a cabin,

or a fire,

or eventually a library,

or just a way to get off this damned island,

but for now I just want to

                                                             drift.

October 13 2023

Returning

The one thing that made up

for leaving lions behind

was running down the diamond lawn

barefoot, to strawberries.

January 26 2023

Here's the thing:

Waking with the sun,

rummaging in the fussy bottom drawer,

running out along the grassy drive

(cold dew numbing your feet to the stones)

and hoisting the raven flag

into the island breeze before

running back to breakfast

doesn't happen all that often.

Go back and tell yourself that

before you forget.

May 30 2023

I tell him I know,

I know,

but it isn't true,

any more than that he understands me.

He's an almost-gone dog,

a shawl of cancer beads shrouding a mystery

that tells me I don't know,

I don't know.

July 11 2023

Arriving

I wish I knew that memory more.

All I have is green beneath the wing,

rising as we made our final approach.

Were there really zebras

running beside the landing strip?

And then that taste of orange soda

in the British style hotel.

That’s it. But we were finally there

and that’s enough.

July 11 2023

To have looked through a kaleidoscope before

is not at all the same thing

as looking through one again.

May 2023

Did I tell you how the other morning 

Molly came down the road, 

paws and tail, 

to sniff his chin?

Old man, he stood still till she was done,

then he dipped his head to hers in turn, 

good girl,

and she ran back to her owner.

April 24 2023

The least of life is much to love.

Consider a withered tree

and how we hope to see it bud again,

and those who agree

that lichen on stone is beautiful.

To say nothing of pine.

To say nothing of ivy's profusion.

And then the lawn,

and then the crows,

and the wide savannah and its game and predators,

and the oblate spheroid of incalculable wealth.

We are the least of life, but there is much to love.

April 9 2023

Morning Pledge

For now, I will do these things

and I will be these things

and I will say these things

and I will see these things

before me.

The rest,

that horrid host,

shall not consume me.

April 4 2023

if you think about it

we’re all in a place

where someone falling from low earth orbit

would love to be

March 16 2023

All That Africa

All that Africa is gone from me now.

There is no continent

where once it crept in my heart,

tectonic.

No canvas tent survives to tell

of water buffalo just outside the flap

or elephants looming in darkness

beyond the mothy lantern light.

There is no VW bus named Zinjanthropus

for you to practice packing the night before,

and pack again at dawn.

There is no high plantation

from which you can carry me down,

head reeling from the mountain air.

I can’t put a pocketknife beside you

to show the scale of your life in a photograph.

Mzee, I will lay you down gently

in the creek bed where we found you,

old hand axe,

and I will dust off my hands,

and walk back to the car,

and my eyes will try to see the valley,

but my heart will feel only the rift.

March 27 2023

When you are helping them down a stair

they do not know they are descending,

you are naturally gentle.

This, above all other times, is not one for a fall.

Let them reach the floor with dignity.

The sleep they do not know they seek

is waiting on their old familiar bed.

January 31 2023