Last Quarter

That quarter moon
Moved really fast across
The western sky just now,
Readying for tomorrow
Here on the cusp of midnight.
My view shed is changing,
In ways I understand,
I look at all my views and
All the things I need
Are there. And were.
I've thought about,
For a couple of years now,
The last quarter when
Winter roses bloom,
Tonight that quarter moon
Raced across the late June
Sky so fast I hardly had
The time to close my
Eyes and open to
Its glow.

Linden Now

Cat slouches in an open sill,
While apple gold-green
Light transports the
Heady scent of linden,
Aphrodisiac of smell and light,
The motionless end of day.
But how do light and scent move so,
On quiet air,
Near-tactile waves,
To knit and stitch
This all together?
There is no sound but bird, the
Baaing of the sheep for corn
Because the light says
It is time, in the
Pause of streaming gold.
Quiet, the plush of night arrives,
Carrying the strands that waft
Far above the rain-soaked earth,
Wild-weathered early summer day,
Rain off, then on, the stuff of
Rainbow, smell of sod and linden.
Whoever sits and
Smells the linden
In its ephemeral season
Is changed; I swear light carries scent,
And in this fractal moment,
There is only this:

Light
Rain
Smell of
Linden

And then the subtle shift,
Harbingered by half-moon in
Still near day-lit sky, rising from the rain,
Before the night’s new universe—
I made it wait, just now, so I could
Fold the sensate, feeling drifts
Into the velvet close.

Garcia-Marquez, Walcott, and Momaday

Wanting for memory
To explain the floating images,
Fugitive phrases
In my mind, the ones I can't
Quite catch, snippets
Of old stories, forgotten poems,
Writing on the land, they
Admix into this
Monologue of rain,
Everything outside and almost
Even in
Green and dripping,
Branches on the trees
Bending near to ground,
They are heavy with rain and
Suppled by the
Blanket of humidity,
Although the cold is coming on
In evening now,
Like an out of step dancer
On the season's stage.
Meanwhile from the unrelenting
Grey aloft, a shaft of
Light appears, though I can't see
The break in sky, nor can I see
Clouds moving, assembling and
Parting to explain,
But there it is.
Tomorrow, comes the sun.

Memory

Summers were long in that time,
And down the road, the
Cranky old woman who lived
Amid her hollyhocks on the
Shabby farm
Would sell you a glass quart of
Heaven's cream
Only, tho, if you were nice.
It was hard to figure her out.
After dinner we played kickball,
In our field, or maybe it was the
NeIghbor's field, but I can't recall
For sure.

My grandmother would go into
The orchard to pick apples,
Cherries too, for pies,
And she sat in the short grass
Dad kept mowed, out there
Under the big willow.
Once she settled so quietly
Into the green weedy
Sweet-smelling place
That a wee garter snake wriggled
Away from her intrusion
But she wasn't in the
Least plussed.

Later this place flows far
From my childhood,
Still anchoring me in
Such palpable ways,
As is the task of memory
In the striving for the stories.
Now, did I really live there?
Did my grandmother lean
Back against the willow and
Tap her cane in random punctuating
Of her stories,
Did her green eyes flash with
Merriment or mirth as she
Fabricated life?
No matter, for I couldn't
Sort it out if the
Queen appeared
To tease out my recall with
Some reward.
I think, in my long days, about
Stories, and that embellishing
Is simply how the frame
Illuminates as
We move along.

Redefining Hope

Down behind the wild hedgerow

In that little dip where spruces 

Stand apart and make a

Heart if I'm looking for signs, 

The sky molds into pure 

Peach, the golden peach of 

Day's passage into  

The night.

I see the black green 

foreground life:

old evergreen and cypress

Punctuating landscape,

I see the old apple tree

In fading silhouette, all

Bookmarking the miracle of 

Change as day gives

Way to night. 

Now grey cirrus float atop

This light, counterpoint to 

The slipping glow, the

Traveling across the land,

As sun arrives 

To burnish fields and rivers 

Of the west.

This exquisite ephemera—

Light, change, constancy—

Are all I need for now. 

Road Talk

Turmoil begins to settle,

Who could ever say why,

But it does,

In visceral, tangible ways.

In the background 

A fine presence,

It is enough, addressing,

Wafting into

The next looming,

Uncharted time. 

And all I want is that 

Uncharted time.

I am figuring that 

Out now. 

A Good Day

What kind of a moon is this,
Anyway, stabbing bright
As the middle of the
Night shifts towards daylight

I am not here often.

Clouds float on past my watch
Obscuring the western light
Faint glow
As it drops to morning
I'm so tired
I just need to look out at that sky
For a bit, before I stop
Understanding what I'm
Thinking, because, just
Tired.

Holding the line, stepping up
And into, isn't that what
We are meant to do? It's
Quite clear that I have to sleep
Before I can't fake the sky, tho
My maps seem clearer now.