Rothko

On waking:
Dream still fertile,
Two planes in one
Endless landscape,
Colors of soil and moss
And that is all. 

Do I have the right
To tell another to live?
The waiting eternal
Comforts us.
I believe this.

Defining, I look out
At ancient,
Sanctified ground,
Where beyond, in grey daylight,
Blue jays flit,
Bolts primary
Against russet-red maple,
Jeweled green-dressed trees
Yet to change
Behind the red
Barn roofs below,
Season's decay golden
In the garden,
The aboriginal dying
Returned to

Soil, moss.

Season

Autumn winds

Don't know quite how 

They want

To blow, and actually 

They don't 

Blow as much as

Start and stop, trying

To ascertain the 

Velocity

Of the season oncoming,

But of course no one really

Knows in these strange
Times, and anyway 

Even if we listen to these

Winds, we can't figure out 

If they are hammer, howl, 

Pass-on-through or 

Float back into

The gentle of the snow

Soon to come,

The question is 

Just when 

And truth is now

That no one knows. 

Good Night from South Bend

            September 23

Across morning's early fall fields

Where summer-sleek cattle

Fold themselves down onto

The turning earth

Sea gulls swoop under

Lowering grey clouds

Full of waiting rain

In the distance I see

The Amish farmer, clad in

Black work clothes,

His straw hat near-gold in

An unexpected shaft of sunlight

That disappears back into

The vast roil of nimbus as

Quickly as he does,

Ducking into his barn,

Shouldering harness

Ephemera, all of it,

Passing whole in my

Sidelong glance,

Wending west, going home.

Coming Home

           

            For Aunt Gretchen

Behind the old dream,

Arriving autumn sun drops early

Behind maples and the orange Octobers.

Driving home from town,

The halo lingers, sun slanting in behind

The western ridges, and

Across the road into the village.

The canopy is up-lit gold,

Branches bending across

The two lanes, like

A trip into the fairy world.

Far away old longings waft,

Slight breezes in the

Change of seasons, and

The homeostasis settles.

Not that it is the right or happy

Place, but it

Is the known, and

Breathing deep and quiet

In the pulsing night

The what might have been

And what might be

Is as alive

As anything, is

Not confined to

Any present, and enduring.

I hum an indistinct tune,

Recalling what she said to me

As I departed home, for home:

Listen to yourself, she said.

I search for sleep, filing 

Tomorrow’s tasks, and weary; and

Suddenly it all

Makes perfect sense.