So an old friend
Arrives
Neither of us suspecting that arrival
And it doesn’t matter,
Except in the days of my life,
To be remembered as
Beautiful friend
From
Miles ago
Renewed in fast moments
In my
Recent
As I struggle for
Understanding
Bereft
Or as always,
Maybe not, at least not yet,
Bereft
And knowing he couldn’t be the
Agent of that, tho
I say,
Oh Lord, very
Fine he is.
Last night,
Making my way down some straight precipices,
In my dream of course,
And perhaps on a mountainous landscape
Among energies undaunted
By a climb,
Or a fall
I remember walking on in
Trepidation
Wondering if in fact I could
Claw my way straight back up
Those channeled precipices
And then
I figured,
I could not, and then
Wanting to be small and lithe, or
Wanting to be
At least an old woman
Worth speaking with—
You know how,
When someone sets aside
Papers, view
Anything
Shifts away toward and
From window, table
Chair
Eye cocks and
Softens
An extra beat in time saying
Perhaps,
An unexpected gesture…
Her unexpected gesture…
I return from a reverie
To a reverie, musing
What, then—
From the corner of my eye,
The dreaming eye,
I see the stairs.
They are the color of
Those steep precipices of clay,
And walking towards them
Miasma, past as always,
I pick up my shoulders
Not so little my time
Different than so little time
In a recognition
I see that, but had I not,
I would not now see
The vast of it
I’ve always seen horizon, and
Just now my inner landscape’s
Verticality.
The Song of Wandering Aengus
I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.
When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And someone called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.
Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.
William Butler Yeats
Birthday Goals for the 78th Year
October 29
Write more poetry
Be calm and find beauty
Expand the vast
Wherein salvation
See shadow
And trust the mirror
Nurture kindness and
Don’t stray
Call to love
Call to forgiving
See the infinite
In a spiderweb’s tenacity
In the far stars in the Milky Way
It is nine minutes after
Midnight
In my allotted new year.
October 30
12:09 am
Resolution and memory:
She refused to go outside on ice-covered pathways, snows lovely but not be be navigated,
She withered in the starts & stops of approaching spring,
Fretting in summertime about the growing,
And only
Settling into winter
After her red-orange autumns
Fade into
What carries from the prairie:
The incessant search
For great opening spaces, where
Love lives
Amid all balance.
Get in the ditch when the plains sky gets green
Let your night vision click in
Listen to the bullfrogs
Wave at the neighbors,
Be aware of your periphery.
Listen to yourself, dear,
Auntie said, maybe she spoke of love,
And trust your gut
And say thank you
For more fireflies this season
Always watch the sky
Smell the earth & air—
My iteration of how
I have to try to live,
My lessons, just blooming
More somehow, amid
A million other
Beautiful ones
I so want
To hear.
