To Lay a Body Down on the Water

Sometimes I feel
Like old Captain Sully
Trying to position myself
For an eventual soft landing
Held aloft by the wind
As if I’m dropping into
A bed of clover
Nose tucked up
Proceeding belly first

Yeah just like Sully
As he heads
Down the River
Attending to his task
Rudder in hand
In immaculate fashion
Unrehearsed
If you need to land
That contraption
Somewhere Sully
Please don’t make it
My backyard

From 5,000 feet
In the air
50 tons feels bulky
Unassisted by
Mechanical thrust
But descends more
Gradually than
You otherwise think
Would be possible
Held aloft by a
Column of air
Streaming down
From the north
Then turning sheer
To the east

Oh yeah
Just like Captain Sully
I want to lay
This body down
So gently on the water
With the wind
Streaming down
Sheer to the East

And I want to get myself
Into position
For that sweet soft landing
With the wind in my face
Held aloft by the ocean breeze
As I’m dropping into place
Nose tucked up
Proceeding belly first

Song of Winter Shadows

What I discovered
During this long cold winter
Looking into shadows
As they come and go
Is something I think
You should know

Shadows come
In many colors
But among all the others
You always find a blue

That’s what I’m telling you
When you look into
Winter shadows
You always find a blue

As the January day
Extends in length
The light softens
At the edges
And I look deep
Into the shadows
Where among
All the colors
I always find a blue

That’s what I’m telling you
When you look into
Winter shadows
You always find a blue

During winter more
Than any other time
Nature comes to you
Spare and uncovered
You look deep
Into her shadows
And there you discover
A rich world of color
And among all the others
You always find a blue

That’s what I’m telling you
When you look into
Winter shadows
You always find a blue

Of the Rock Pocket People

with Heather and Ora
on a cold January day


So we navigated
From the south end
Of the Mall past the
Air and Space Museum
And then we alit
From the Honda

Fellow travelers with
Child rearing years
In the rear view mirror
Though child like
All the same
We encountered
An Ojibwe canoe
And central Arctic kayak
In the vast interior

Only slowly learning
To articulate
The latent manifesto
Of the poem indwelling
In such wide open spaces

Aligned dead center
In the nested circles
Of concentric rings
I felt there the
Indelible spirit
Of the tribe from
Whence I came
Captured by means
A vaulted ceiling
And the stones heavy
In my pocket’s bottom

Of brotherhood
And sisterhood
I mean to sing
These being the feelings
Most concentric
To the heart of
Any human being

The Day I Met Anna

Sometimes as with
A twisted climbing vine
All the poems in my life
Seem inextricably entwined
Inter-textually speaking
To one another and to
My more slippery self

Each new stanza
Sends its gentle
Tendrils in short
Swift shoots

Now today
In your midst
For the very first time
I find myself
Preoccupied
By the expression of
An entirely new twist
On the state of things

Perceiving how
It takes a subtle
Yet epochal shift
In a wintry light
To make an old suit of clothes
Still more comfortably fitting

Strange Epiphany in the Home Furnishing Aisle

In Walmart store 554
On the edge of the
Northern plains
I was unmindfully
Shopping when suddenly
Two flashlights in one hand
Apprised for just
Three ninety five
I felt keen need
Deep in my heart’s core
For something more
Though less tangible
Some utterly frangible
Token of long sought El Dorado

Wandering down
The home-furnishing aisle
Steadily advancing
Words bouncing off
A distant microwave tower
Honing in closer still
To encounter whom
Or what I knew might yet
Be applied to my flesh
Like an existential balm

I saw Norma Komali
Hanes and Fruit of the Loom
Unbeatable low prices for bleach
And fabric softener besides

Amidst this storehouse
Profusion with sparrows flitting
Swift as linnet’s wing
I might as well be swimming
In twilight so suddenly
I veered off track
One more casualty
To the uncountable
Chasms of impulse
Shopping

Until a plain lettered
Sign recalled
My mind to order
With gentle reminder
That saving money
And living better
Go so well together

Which bathed me
In the light of the
Strict necessity
Of the manifold cartons
Of Quilted Northern
And White Cloud
Stacked and standing
Side by side
Each and every ply
Essential
To wipe the slate clean

Thus amidst the boxed
And stamped precincts
Of every day low prices
Wandering from aisle to aisle
I found sign of the nothing
That could best fill my heart’s
Many resultant exultant desires

Lines Spoken In The 7-Eleven Parking Lot

“All knowledge is local,”

Orion whispers into the wintry night

As he gracefully rises

And cinches his belt,

Preparing to march across

The dome stretched high above

The 7-Eleven parking lot.

“Because, my friend,” he says with a sideways glance,

“Ontogeny recapitulates cosmology.

And besides,

Please bear in mind

A blackbird sees you

Twice as distinctly, while you,

Always struggling to return such favors

With more poetic labors

Will never improve

Upon the blackbird’s view.”




Yet why else write,

I say to myself,

But to celebrate

This night and

This sky

And to commemorate

The words Noble Orion

Has spoken as he

Lets loose

Another shaft

From his star crossed bow,

And I take another sip of scalding decaf.

Fullsome Flowering

What an artist knows
She knows in her flesh
With each turn of her wrist
Each inspiration and breath
She iterates space
With a knowing caress

Eyes open or closed
She feels joy in her bones
And sudden most sorrow
Stipples her marrow
So come what tomorrow
The stronger it grows

With the tip of her brush
She enraptures the rose
And captures swift life
As it ebbs and it flows
Through the harmonics
Of laughter and shade

From garden to pallet
By means enigmatic
She deftly reveals
A message hieratic
Inscribed on the petals
And leaves strewn below

Restoring us as
Beings who know truth in
What is and isn’t there
With such likeness that
We come round to seeing
More than enough
To overcome our
Autumnal despair