Six O'clock AM

Yellow moon,
Round spotlight in an
Early wintery morning,
Fog lifting from the
Frosted fields, a
Close porous mantle 'round
The restless owl.
He'd been hooting
As I drifted off,
Was plaintive when
I woke; the room moon-bright,
My blinded sleep sealed
Wakeful in the silent house.

Alone I strain to recognize
The settling creaks
And sighs of the old place,
The changing darkness
Of the full moon waning
Stirring near-noiseless creatures
Moving on the metal roof
And along the gables,
Big as running bears in
A wary, undreamt landscape.

If he were here I'd have
Tossed and turned
To shield away
The interrupting moon,
And not heard a thing but
The voices in my dream:
Wake up, wake up,
There just might be
A new day waiting, coming;
We're calling now,
We're ready now
For you to claim the light.

North Woods

Russet on the golden miles

The swaths of bracken bronzing 

Into nestled corm to sleep

Amid the thistle and scrub pine

Giving way to watery

Bogs, to kettle lakes

Rimmed by boulders and outcroppings. 

We drive consumed by shouting silence

Of conversation unimagined

When we were young and 

Starting off in a world

Undimmed by so much peril.

But I still carry him, although 

He's gone forever, leaving

Memory in the stillness of my heart,

Ahead of days that roll uncertain

Into a dark where no light shines.

And yet a door was opened once, 

And I will never close it,

Meanwhile the maple and the birch trees 

Shed their leaves,

My season metamorphose

As with theirs, because 

All things must change,

Although for some of us, 

All things will stay the same.