March
gold blades slice
weeping bare limbs
pierce cold earth
ice water
seeping
bright tonic
wake
sleeping roots
rise
Categories
March: Poem
Category: Poetry
Categories
The Pursuit of Happiness
Happiness is not yours.
A guest in our home,
It arrives warm, bright, generous,
Leaves quietly before its time.
Happiness is not mine.
It lives untamed
In wilderness between our hands
But not in our hands.
A tide between our shores,
Happiness is not yours
To keep, not mine to give.
But it may be shared
As you swim beside me,
The wake trailing your body
Gently joining mine.
What comes each dawn I do not know Dawn knows no reason Keeps its own season Buds at budding time Ripens at harvest time Dies in its prime Leaves one fresh gift To confound the clever painter Blending at their palette.
Categories
Peace Keeping
Peace Keeping
My garden has been my refuge,
but I’ve been away too long.
One evening I found my garden
shot through in crimson, gold, and wildfire.
As the sun pressed lower
I drew water for the birds.
Kneeling under red clumps of currants
I plucked greedy weeds and scattered
fists of mulch over sleeping roots.
Now in shadow I chopped tangled
thorns and nettle, avoiding their fire.
I took up my spade and opened a trench
to guard the perimeter from crabgrass.
Come nightfall I set down my tools,
and in the cool darkness
I lay silent and still
beneath the moon’s soft blanket.
Categories
Trimming the Tree: A Christmas Poem
One glass swan
Color of Reisling
Weightless
What else endures?
Nothing
Ornamental
Nothing
Fragile
No relics
No artifacts
This frost-lit night
December’s
Tea-stained sidewalk
The Aurora
Flowing through
The cold black sky
Thick with stars?
Categories
Categories
Epistle: November Poem
Categories
October: When to Worry
A poem for October, for always.
Categories
September Poem
Categories
The Old Man – a poem
The old man paused on the bridge
a favorite stop
upstream of the lazy oxbow
where a boy once watched
the milky gold
afternoon light
spill through the alders
into empty space
over still water
its silent weight
filled the air
suspending dragonflies
as they patrolled the cattails
urgently
as if they knew
the lateness of the hour.
I Could Be Wrong 