Resolving

On a night in the time of

Christmas, we sit after midnight in 

A room surrounded by the 

Belongings of our dead, 

And oh there is comfort

And the fire flickers messages

That all of those we know 

And cherish and pray for

See, in their fires.

Still,

There is no 

Special message, save in

This one, in this ending year:

My relatives, I pray for you,

I think upon your lives, and mine,

I join your hopes and your praying

And I too build my fires, 

And I too watch, as in this 

Eternal, everlasting flicker,

Pulling us all back to 

Essential,

Goodness and mercy,

Striving all the days of our lives,

We arrive here, 

Here in this 

New Year.

Solstice Eve

So I came out tonight to sit in this 

Christmassed conservatory, 

The tree near-perfect but for bare spots,

We all grow and have our bare spots.

Paper whites blooming here, and 

Summer stragglers building to next spring,

Rosemary in pots,

Hibiscus

And jasmine maybe, bougainvillea 

That I brought in for winter.

And out here, in a small pot

A peacock's feather and a very small 

Painting, from Haiti,

In the painting the children are

Playing with swords. 

Our friend brought us these things.

He wrote history about Haiti, fiction,

Voudon, and 

About France.

And I put the peacock feather

Into the small pot,

With tall curly twigs

I've kept because they're so pretty

And a year or two later, lo, the twigs

Had small, pale mossy leaves on them

Airborne, quite literally, no 

Living medium except air's alchemy

Nurturing organics of the earth that every

Spring time bloom,

And so ten years on, I will not 

Change much, or mess with this

Infinitesimal grand plan thriving 

In a certain light

In a certain place in this old

Farmhouse, knowing,

Finally, as I do here in this mystery 

That I am but a nanosecond, 

Just passing through.

December Sadness

I walk away and I think a little bit,

I think about the horrid

State of affairs in the world and 

How I cry and pray

How I try to hold

Whatever my constellation is

Together 

I find myself in this strange, urgent prayer,

And not necessarily suddenly, but 

All of a sudden something else 

Joins that supplicating reverie, 

And becomes

As alive as all the other transcendent pleas: 

Walk through my door.

Say hello, say goodbye, I really

Don't care; just

Walk through my door.

The dark grows longer 

Even as the light begs

Embracing. 

I struggle as best I can, but 

The closer I get to mortality,

The more I feel the 

Longing setting in.

Tomorrow I'll fume about

The dogs, the slick roads 

Really reasonable and stressful things,

Knowing somehow 

I'm hijacked.

The Calm Before the Storm

Some nice weather moving in tonight.

I let go my worry while I keep to prayers, 

For everywhere else I turn a 

Blizzard, now tornado,

Blizzard, as I mentioned,

But here the splattering rain.

Reserving the 

Right to complain, 

Because when it doesn't go well and 

Wind blows against the house,

Hard rain comes through the ceiling,

Snowdrifts darken the windows and 

The progress to the barn

I am become disoriented. 

Shall I let the elements create here? 

After all, I'm just passing through,

Or can I just complain?

Right now, sure steady rain,

A hint of wind, manifesting

On the metal roofs, as 

I sit here listening, feeling

The this of wind and rain, an 

Ancient dance

Over and through the land and heaven.

I peer out my back windows, deep into 

The forest's inky night 

Across the Finger Lakes 

And beyond, beyond my vision or 

Any hint of one single thing but sky, 

Hundreds of miles way outside my 

Ken give way to cities, speed limits, 

Signs and confusions I'll 

Encounter as I wend my way through 

Outcroppings on my way to home.

It is time to think about

Home. Other people may 

Describe it, but

When I start out, quietly

Backing out my drive,

Closing off the static, mindless chatter,

When I decide to figure out

What it is I cherish, save 

My flesh and blood,

It does come down to 

Home.

Now, define it in your private

Heart, your own solitary gaze towards 

Where you formed. Strip away the

Years, go home, and birth again from

Your decent ground of being,

The one you recognize when you see 

A familiar line of sky,

Glimpsed above some treetops, 

Your city block,

Your early sunrise in a 

Neighborhood that sleeps,

Your prairie, mountains, buttes, 

Your rivers,

Trusting without knowing 

That you're home for

All of us, for all of them, for

A nanosecond, maybe less, so 

Make it rich, verdant, fertile, fertile

Dirt enough to carry blooming 

Into all that we don't know.

The rain. It should be snowing now,

Snowing on December's verge,

But at my age, I don't 

Have much time 

Left for the art of

Making bargains.