The translucent shell
I fill
overflows and yet
I share it
sparingly—why not
pass the cup
meant for me alone?
Time runs
in rivulets
down bare granite cliffs,
I need only
lift a hand
to catch
a silver sip,
but so much I let sink
in the sand.
Category Archives: Poetry Club
Transient Wake
Rob the bed
to set the table,
flower heads, an armful
of scent—
I trail an absence of flora.
I rend the living page.
I paste myself wet
into a book of days—
too late I guess
this lifetime much
to change
To Live
To live within dangerous reach
of the sea
set down
the life I know
let go my grip
and press my cheek
to the sand—
sea wind
and wave crash
reach me less
here where the sound
flies high overhead—
a shallow calligraphy
sky writ,
a pair
of pelicans.
Hummingbird in the Museum
Volumes of air and light
in this house we built
for art.
Only after she sinks
exhausted to the floor
says the guard
can we carry her out.
In the Languages I Love
I sing spare
in present time
with gaps
and leaps of knowing
pin clean sheets
on a line
high enough
no cloth need touch
the earth
run between shapes
the wind takes
an animating breath
imagined waves
almost/already dry
Minimum Visible
Some months since
my sight goes dim
come evening—
no parsing print
close-held.
Small surprise then
down the lane at dusk
I cross abrupt
a butterfly,
unexpected velvet dark
in angles
toward my face,
soft-catch
in my hair
a moment more
then disappeared
and I’m new
aware—o!
a common microbat
Summer Place
No world absolute
but we let the wild wood undisturbed
grow close
and the leaves
shifting green
throw gaps of sky
inside—we swim even now
in filtered light,
tree reflections
on your face,
leaf-shallows on the dinner plates.
Near Space
Cold enough
as usual our breath
in clouds expires
in changing formation
(interpretive dance)
at last
the masses dissipate.
Spirits move
as spirits will
a thousand birds
warble and trill/
trill and warble
no less real
than the more material.
(In fourth grade
mid-sentence
reading aloud
an acoustic ceiling tile
crashes down
on my head—
when the glue loosens
the sky in squares
may fall).
The day moon
we will on her way
looks on careless,
resolute to stay, clear
through afternoon.
Maybe this Waterfront Isn’t Depressing
My bicycle heart
missing essential parts
skips curbs and pumps
to catch up.
Maybe I’m a fish
with limbs?
The brackish air
wafts inland.
Don’t ride with me
so often anymore.
I find this incline
hellish hard—
I grow soft
at the core.
Without end bayland hills
cooperate—an almost wild backdrop
on this lunch date.
We look cool
on a Google bike for two.
Avoid the street
where the egrets still mate.
The trees balance nests
openly and the birds
gargle calls
as they crest thin white feathers
in the noonlight.
It’s garish!
It’s a short-cut.
It’s a general mess of public
love-making overhead.
You lay the salt marsh transparency
over the corporate campus map—
it’s hi-tech,
the route back
easy enough.
A Salt Marsh Spare on Trees
Where the airbase
overlaps the bay
on a sand path
I sometimes sit and paint
and the manned machines far off
cut new rights of way
through the cow parsnips in clouds
and the salt grass
sways in time
with distant capillary waves,
few and faint.
I remember the line about
nothing better suited to wind
than pines
but what’s ancient Greek
for an onshore breeze
that whispers in the sedges?
The last of the darting swallows
eats up the soft descending night
and even gnats need sleep,
aloft a moment
in a current
and the next
gone entirely from sight.