two poems:


On a train to New York

Catskills in the background
the morning Hudson in the fore, 
jagged ice jams interspersed
with free-flowing brown water,
iced coffee stirred with light cream

it is hard to fathom
that this is near the end

morning sun warms ruffled pigeons
grasses in the estuary wintered to a golden ochre
the hills wear their mid-winter grey-brown stubble

the doomsday clock moves in horrible increments
consequences imminent

duck blinds abandoned by water’s edge
beaver dams in the inlets
a solitary deer stands pensive on a tiny island
stranded by shifting ice

an opposite bound train an arm’s length away
breaks the air in a loud blur
to it’s end, our beginning
both finite

ahead of schedule

civilization as fleeting 
as the scenery through the window



'Soul mates'

I've done the sad math,
my not-yet-love,
the odds of our orbits intersecting 
stand staggeringly slim.

Where are you?
Montana, Malaysia, Malawi?
Chaste, married, worse?
Who among the billions are you?
a prisoner of conscience awaiting release
a chanteuse in France, singing smoke rings in dingy clubs,
a researcher in remote village, focused and diligent,
a nun in Himalayan convent or a dying diocese in Iowa,
an Inuit on an island cut off by receding ice,
a soccer mom in Duluth, frayed by the rush of days,
the unending laundry, the diminishing returns?

Did our elbows brush in the throng of Times Square,
the crush of the subway,
was that you sullenly staring out the breath-sweated porthole
of a train in Warsaw while I shivered on the platform,
hand in pocket, rubbing two coins together for luck?

I wondered had you died,
but felt no heavy heart rending, no deep grief

I admit, I quit the quest ages ago,
stopped scanning the missed connections,
no longer vigilant for a distress call, a homing beacon,
the atomic flash of recognition.

I perished the thought of you,
laid to rest the fallacy of your existence

Days and nights can't be this void, this silent

Hope is a pinprick of light
in her beautiful orbit
somewhere in the velvet black sky

three poems

Visitation

some dread long denouements:
the slow melee of the funeral parlor,
the mellow mauve lighting,
the altered pallor.

they say, the soul leaves behind a shell,
end there.
omit the extended lamentation.
only the immediate family truly cares.

crows wait the obligatory
twenty four hour grieving period,
idly chatting on branches high above,
before descending upon the matted fur,
the tough sinews, the flattened skeletal structure
of an unidentifiable animal corpse on the roadside.
"No one has shown up during calling hours,"
they remark. 

his kin know, that is not him,
he is not there.

---

Two poems for our extended winter...

​frost heaves

rarely are our efforts facile,
natural cycles make them less so

rain seeps into cracks, then freezes,
bulging and buckling the tarmac

the smallest flaw evolves
denying smooth travel

hardened by cold, expanded,
elusive water becomes forceful, tactile

then melts and eludes our grasp,
fluid through frustrated fingers
​

---

bud break

A killing frost
took the daffodils
and likely the peaches,
but we will see

she is indiscriminate

Last August offered up abundant bushels,
blushing, golden, fist-sized peaches,
the year before, a dozen total, atrophied and shriveled.
Years of leaf curl, scab, wither and beetle,
seasons of velvet sweetness and dripping juices,
and of hail-pelted peaches rotting on the ground

she is indeterminate

A breathing mist curls and twists
up from the frosted grass
as the sideways sun
imposes its will, the frost succumbs
and sublimates

she is delicate

---