Pond Night and Chorale

Good Christ

They’re loud, the frogs,
Basso profundo, they set up

A mighty warfare 

At the pond tonight, and 

All the little minions
Too, chiming in,

Brave alto warblings,

Such life everywhere around

Right here, bit of balance,

Eyes close to violet swoon, tho,

Lavender petunias, lifting off into
This sponge-painted sky.

Surrounded by Stars

Last evening, after dinner, 

We walked around this living place

We followed the light from the

Setting sun, where now and then 

It haunts

Through some low, brittle 

Evergreen branches 

Aged hardy into 

A sort of frame in a particular 

Spot in the alleé

Back behind the barns.

Anyway, I said

I can’t tramp there right now,

And when she got just past

The burrow, massive roots

Curling mysterious under a ghosted

Long gone tree, and deep

Organic in the slanting-sunset-

Shafted passage demarking, 

For the sake of maps and 

Deeds and so forth, 

The property line’s long double stretch 

Of old firs and pines, 

She paused 

On soft rust needles, 

On mossy scrub, and  

Because it was the twilight hour

The sun just so, and 

Glinting low, I saw its gold

Through that pungent aperture and 

In the dim she rather 

Vanished down the alleé, 

Until she passed by my watching and 

Then as if in slow motion, turned to west, 

To gaze upon

The fields beyond

When of a sudden 

The sun caught the claret ruby red

In her wine glass, perfect axis

Flashing 

Clear and claret, ruby, red

I will not forget that

All is well and good

Here in these sane, 

Giving, gifting pastures

Windbreaks and growing berms

Tonight the palest

Shadow on moon-silvered

Gathering cirrus harkens 

More rain coming soon. 

Tonight we speak of other

Energies and allow as how we

Err to not allow them in.

This night, though, promise, 

Everlasting beauty, and homeostasis.

Some things are simply

Bedrock

Composting into balance, and 

Although nothing is easy now, 

I am clear-eyed, 

Looking through 

The claret of it all. 

The Great Unknown of This

Big grey cloud stretching 

Across the western sky

Heading north 

Like a huge mammoth of

The deep

I fancy it heading for 

The St Lawrence then

To Terra Nova

Moving swiftly as to remind

That all things change as

They set sail

For better,

For dream,

For home

For new

The sextant sparks the sailor’s way,

And while it all,

Always, leads to 

An end,

How much better it is to know that 

The oft-unsteadied hand

Can reach and dare. 

Nothing is guaranteed 

Sometimes I rail and weep for 

Days and days 

And finally stop.

Relaxing, shrugging into

Calm, and waking into my 

Moonless inner landscape, 

The silver shimmers.

There it all makes sense. 

Being Here

Sitting tonight outside

On a tattered winter-struck patio

Not yet rescued by broom 

And potted things

I’ve mowed the long hardy grasses, weeds 

Twice now in this long

Recalcitrant spring

I’ve noticed many bluebirds

Fewer robins

And this afternoon spotted

My first little brown toad of the season

Hopping away from the 

Frightening sounds of my mower

And truly, watching, as I carefully turned 

Away from her hideout in

A clump of unruliness around

The smoke bush back by the barn. 

The sun is descending and small grey 

Scattered cumulo stratus nimbus fill the 

Western sky behind the firs that keep

The dust from from Bobby’s plowing from 

My windows, opened

Momentarily to admit spring cleansing before

I close them up

For an unseasonably chilly night

The dip in the back 

Opening amongst long, tall

Stands of spruce and fir,

My alleé I call it there, though just an 

Unkempt magic land of burrows, 

Rotting stuff, rust chuff 

From ancient evergreens

Carpeting a path, well-known 

By generations of animals, and 

Through this window 

Bits of peach and gold from the

Disappearing day cast

A blaze 

Nonpareil 

An instant that 

Beckons belief

My hands are cold and

It’s time for dinner. 

May 18, 2019

Mother’s Day

The blood can catch up, 

The Hurley stubborn in me

Don’t want to go anywhere

Don’t want to go no mo 

This old fabric of land 

Here rent

With memory 

What we could never know

Except that it comes alive, the

Place just blooms, 

The air, the light and the

Dirt shifting

Thinking to temper obdurate,

Some kind of self taps at 

The wild, taps on the window

Look, see this vastness

Loves seem to bloom

From deep down into those

Sighs, long those shadows, and all 

So beautiful in

The sun

May 7, 2019

Accident

Working on a theory

Borned from some trauma,

Most immediately that of

Accident and bad luck

Becoming as bad as bad dream 

As an unwelcome life of it all

Took root,

Defining

Day, night and all the in-between moments

Of fear, doubt, what now and

So forth. 

The thought occurred to me as 

I took a photo of myself as I do

Most everyday, in perhaps a vain

Moment hoping to capture a small

Shrinking of a scary hematoma on my

Forehead,

And I tried to think of another word 

For it that wouldn’t be so jarring,

But there isn’t one.

I started to think about stepping 

Back and away,

As I more or less have done 

I too fight to save Mother Earth

And the people I love the most are so
Clear in their relentlessness

But I did step back, step away,

I had to, for whatever reason, a 

Near-miss, though perhaps I’ll heal

If I am mindful and do as I am told. 

Talking with a friend who let go

The disillusionment of comraderie

She, bleeding hope and passion and

A justice maybe just beyond,  

She said she had to turn away, for now

Or for how long, actually she didn’t say. 

It’s not just about the struggle

Some of us sometimes

Must turn to face another in another light,

The one that glows in the pit of 

Stomach, heart, essence, 

And so stepping quietly amid

The shards of betrayal and avarice

Dissonance and the flat hollow note 

Of someone else’s torque, 

We leave to find in witness and

Introspection a ground as vibrant

And authentic as any solidarity,

Only solitary

I felt this, briefly swirling in the static,

And with a grateful heart, I 

Vowed to try to share that there

Is power and vital balance when

All is said as best one can before the ring 

Is tossed to stars and hope, holding breath and 

Praying for the unseen hands stretched 

To take it up for a time, knitting the 

Intention into belief that something

Bigger waits for bigger breath. 

On His Birthday

I asked you what you wanted

For your birthday; it’s now arrived 

This early spring day, 

And you shed some tears

And said,

“I want my sight back,”

And that stymied me:

Now what? 

And then I began to think

Perhaps 

You do have sight.

I mean, this trauma has delivered

Insight and patience, 

Resilience embedded in 

The lessons of never quite knowing, 

The lessons that one really doesn’t want 

To have to learn,

The inchoate lessons that 

Emerge to keep one going.

Faith floats out there

On a heretofore unknown horizon

It’s not sharp or clear, and muddies 

Contours that already are not crisp,

But there waiting is a different promise

That one hopes to never realize

Because the price of such clarity

Is too dear to contemplate. 

So you just keep on

And you find 

I think, perhaps 

That thrive is a goal tinged

With the golden fog of hope,

And the slow dawn, the 

Process of a dawn that tells you that 

You are just fine. 

You see all 

You need to see. 

And you continue on. 

~ Peter, April 25