spring

it is a rather common day
early in another april
except that the door is open
for the first time in months

in come the sounds of a new season 
like the return of an old friend

with the clicking trees saying,
“you never write;
when you were younger,
you used to write all the time”

i know i should pick up my pen
and jot a few lines
about the pleasing arcs of daffodils
or the spring songs of tractors

but now the birds have suddenly stopped
their annual nest-making
and the cats have made a curious peace
with the dogs across the way

even the wind has stopped its yelling -
just sitting there quietly in the clouds
listening to stories of the sun

and me, i am drifting now,
my little journal perched
like a tiny teepee upon my chest

my hand dips into the river
formed all along the sofa,
dousing for words
like an oar feeling for the current

i scoop up languor and twitter
from the cool still water
and plop them in my mouth
like melted snow,
tasting the rocks and iron
of a far away place

i go back for more
and am happy to pull up see-saw
quite by happenstance

but i know i am
drowsing further now
and that it is far too late for writing
or warm chats with friends

“perhaps tomorrow,” 
i call out to shore,
floating away,

see-saw still
splish-splashing at my feet,
the name of some flower -
hyacinth maybe -
drying on my face.

ariel

when i ask my niece,
“if you could be any kind of animal,
what would you be?”

she blurts back, “a mermaid!  a mermaid!”
with such conviction
that i think she has thought
about the topic for weeks

the ramifications of living
underwater and swimming
in the murky depths
without shelter or home

that she is willing to tolerate
the incessant charming
of eels and sharks
and setting atop a rock for weeks
waiting for a tall ship to come

i think she is only four
and can’t possibly know
the stories of sirens
sending sailors to their doom
and decaying wrecks at
the bottom of the sea

that she hasn’t yet begun
the schooling of her brother 
who is seven
with his classrooms full of
carnivores and saber-toothed tigers

but then i see 
the plastic doll in her hands,
the young maiden with red hair flowing,
seashell top, and scaly green tail

and her eyes suddenly
sparkling like the ocean

it is then i decide against
arguing the finer points
of monkeys, bears, and eagles,

and instead, agree with her,
that a mermaid is, of course,
the perfect choice. 

mom

my earliest memories are
of little square blankets full of
toys, Captain Kangaroo and
hiding behind polyester floor-length
curtains in the only house I can
remember.

my mom didn’t drive until she was
older, or maybe it was until our
family could afford two cars –
I never asked – but for me all
it meant was lots of long walks
alongside my mom next to my
brother’s stroller for milk or for
bread or for whatever it was
grownups did.

after toothbrushes
the yellow triangle on the
ceiling would peek in from
the hallway that connected
the bedroom my brother and I
shared to the kitchen to the
living room to the front porch
to the world we called home

every night we would call
like twittering birds for mom to
come tuck us in and say goodnight
to another day.

mostly it was just a game
between hyperactive boys born
fifteen months apart, heads full
of James Bond and monsters
but mom would come in every night
to play anyway:
rubbing our backs
brushing our hair
pulling the covers up tight

years later when I was a goofy
teenager exploded in pieces all
over her lap because some girl
had shown me the crazy side of
love, all I wanted was her to
tell me everything would be ok
in the morning.  it wasn’t, of course,
and she knew, of course, but she
still brushed my hair anyway.

now that I am older I know
that moms just make their own
medicines.  they are the most
holy of all the ancient doctors.
witch hazel and spice mixed up
and spread across our lives
and dabbed on with tissues like
some magical salve.

when you start to see yourself
from farther away than just the
mirror in the morning, you can see
where you came from.  yes, I have
her green eyes and thick brown hair
but what I mean to say is I expect
people to be good without even
asking why and that this world
is full of almost unknowable kindnesses.

my mother is the loveliest of souls.

I brush my wife’s hair
almost every week now
and try to straighten
the tangled lives we’ve made.

mostly boys are full of boo-boos
and ants, but some of them
still practice those secret
formulas they learned so long ago.

creation of man

there are only two paintings
that have ever brought me to tears

the Sistine Chapel
with all its tourists clicking into each other
heads titled towards the ceiling
like a convention of broken Pez dispensers

the glorious work
gazing back down at us from Heaven 
with all its ancient secrets and angelic songs

i could not help but stop
to hear the notes
every single one

the second an unnamed Monet
on a small piece of linen
of a train station that he must have used
on his way to Giverny

the iron horse and its passengers
perfectly paused there with its cumulus of smoke and desire
their heads lost in a gossamer of steam and progress

all of them rumbling headlong
toward a century of fantastic flying machines
and war

no one seems to notice
the quiet bearded man
off in the corner

his eyes drowning in light
his hand touching God’s
like Adam 

summer night

i lie here still,
in the bathroom half-light
spilling across the bed,
my wife quietly scrubbing another day
off her face,

when the dog sits up with a start
and stares intently at the glass door -
partway cracked so i can hear
the chirping frogs outside.

i know it is his reflection he sees,
but the phantom dog floating outside
our bedroom window two stories up
has him in fits.

i tell him it’s ok.
i tell him it’s only a reflection,
and there’s nothing to worry about.

but he insists something’s not right,
that danger is nearby,
out there in the dark.

arf, arf!
past the glow bugs, 
in between the trees, he says,
it’s watching us, just waiting for us to close our eyes.

no, no, i say.
it’s just a reflection, your reflection.you’ll see; it will disappear as soon as she comes to bed.

ruff, ruff!
i can smell it now, unharnessed in the wind.  
it’s coming fast down our road.
it’s getting big and mean and cold,
and it knows where we live.

no, no, silly puppy.
you are only six months old, and
you don’t know the way the world works yet.
you’ll see. 

grrrrrrrr.
now he is suddenly still, staring
helpless and wide-eyed into the inky black 
staring back at him.

i give his tiny collar a shake and repeat
the night’s mantra
just once more.

but i know it is too late now,
and that he finally knows the secret
he so long suspected
is real.

i am about to tell him this
and all of the awful truth.
confess to the evils of Man
and the horrible things that
live in the spaces just between the trees.

i am about to tell him that the demon dog 
will leap through the glass
and in a fever of hate and horror,
tug at our sleeping throats.

that it will get us in the end,
and there’s nothing i can do to save him.

i am about to tell him all of this, 
when suddenly she turns off the light,
and all of us - she and I, the two dogs, and the bleating frogs-
are plunged into darkness again. 

salesman

as I travel this perfect
ribbon of highway
connecting two rather ordinary cities,

the cumulus tilts long-ways across the road
suddenly forming an imaginary mountain range
here among the cornfields
complete with a crystalline lake
and there, I can barely glimpse
the passage through to the Pacific.

I wonder what pulled them,
the first ones here,
what invisible gossamer
when after a clearing,
there was nothing but another forest
and another unnamed lake.

when the weary man,
after ten days travel
with two horses, his wife of three years, 
his first-born son and Sally, their dog,
hesitated a moment,

and early in the morning
thought about swimming
far out into the deep black water
to drown.

sleepwaking

when i wake,
my hands are asleep again.

i lie there for a moment,
waiting for them to move,
but the heavy limbs 
crossed on my chest
seem to have other plans.

i imagine spending the day
with the stubborn mallets,
a blind robot swinging his hands 
in a futile search for feeling.

i see the surprise in the dogs’ eyes
when i tap them goodbye
with a careful bonk
before i head off to work.

there i will forge and hammer
a missive to the staff,
perhaps something inspirational and uplifting:

Jhdefokjh,

Dfsdfs ths fgdsdo f werdfg,  Wd rtg ertg  efw dfwssx dd
fdiom mkw s addfotly dfsd sdd plkutys, iju qwwe sdwer
fe ythery jkdfd fyw griuys.

-Sdgduog

but no one will say a thing.

i will gaze out my window
at the clog of morning traffic
finally running down to the capillaries,

when my fingers will awaken,
remembering a strange dream,

something about the fineness of hair,
the smile or her eyes,
the small of her back.

party

god comes in
and from across the room
i can tell it’s like
like he owns the place

there he is 
glad-handing the maitre’d
with a knowing smile

and patting the busboy
with a firm
keep-it-up grin

now he is parting
a sea of people
on his way to the bar

where everyone begs
for his attention but
“not now,” he says

whispering something witty and charming
to the raven haired woman

quips of far away places
and the foibles of the devil

love story

it’s ultimately a leap of faith
to say that love lasts forever

that this world and the next
are somehow bridged
by ordinary human hands and hearts
across all space and time

but love is the greatest thing
we can ever hope to achieve here

so while it might appear
that all love stories must end tragically
i’m beginning to think that this too
is a silly human trait

that more likely
love is just batting her eyes
with a quick passing glimpse

before coming over to say hello

unprecedented

jesus, just look at us
trying to capture 
the spectacle of it all

and gazing into our laps
watching ourselves prance across the stage

god must laugh
as he watches the playback

our clumsy pirouettes around the sun —
thinking we are perfect, invincible, 
unprecedented

 

boyhood

often i’m off to thinking
of a boy running through
a forest by a brook searching
for good, flat skipping stones
or the best pieces of worn glass maybe
even poisonous snakes

i see the boy tripping over
the upheaved root of an ancient tree – too
big for climbing and skinning
his hands
all pink and burning

and sometimes i see the boy discover
the root goes to the tree

i watch
his eyes imagine
the tree from underneath and see
his heart fill with schemes so much better than wagon races

of underground mazes
and digging to china through his sandbox

sedna

upon discovery of sedna, 
the tenth planet in our the solar system

today 
she gave us
a long glance
from way across the room

and i cannot help but notice
that we are truly a nation
of simple men

as we bicker 
about what to call her
(as if she was ours to name)

all the while she stares back 
perhaps a bit coy

like some playful coquette
late to the dance

or maybe just another woman
upset at what we’ve done with the place
 

question

if god were to set his foot
down in front of me

and tell me to judge His world
now for certain
as so often i tried to do,

would i take the keys
and sit seriously
pointing my hand, or

would i just let everyone in?

star-crossed

orion blinks and shimmers
over my house
three nights this week
all of the sisters showed up
to watch the show

we spin in circles all the while

some of us launching out
in all directions
flying off the merry-go-round
like when we were six

some of us just close our eyes
and try not to get too dizzy

nevercircle

as a boy
clouds sifted sun
through my eyelids, i felt their shadow-light

i soared high into the wind on the tight arc of a swing
trying so hard to complete
its never circle

clouds circle mountains
as a man, i am like them
a spirit bound to rock
by gravity
 

stirling

we rock here back and forth
from green to blue
and back again

all the while
our children are shaking in the stars
waiting for the moment
when truly special artists
are given god’s hands
just for a bit

and then they can fashion
a precious jewel
out of nothing at all

but love and history

he is
and will always be
your greatest work

winter

as i move the rotting jack-o-lantern
away off the porch

i find a sleepy november bee
moving too slow to care
whose life has long turned to sap

the legs pose one final time

all the eyes close at once
and dream again
of the speed of spring

venice

when i had circled the sun
almost thirty times
i traveled with my angel to places
across the sea that i learned of
when i was a boy

ever so slightly
i pushed my mark into
those ancient steps
like so many children playing with clay

we spend our lives shouting to the pigeons:

“i was here”
“i have crossed your streets and clicked in your shuttered terraces”

we spend our lives writing our epitaphs

ambulance

on my drive in today
i passed an ambulance
screeching east
while I plodded west

i did my duty
and bowed my car
respectfully
off the side of the road

i doubt that any EMT knows
but i always lower my radio
and say a little prayer
for the quiet rider in the back

at first, i thought
the woman in the co-pilot seat
was rather old for this type of work
her silver hair all disheveled
from the rush at the scene

but then I realized
she was a wife
and there must be a husband

or perhaps not

she looked so completely lost
staring at the hospital racing towards them in the window

and suddenly empty
like a soda can
with its mouth hanging open

saying no