https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1ST9TZBb9v8

Turmoil

I lose hope, 

But since I am wired with 

An optimism people born on the plains 
Have to have,

The sort of optimism they have to have 

When they won’t let shit bury them, 

I won’t say that I lose hope, 

I say I have become 

Less optimistic, 

It’s easier that way. 

Churning from gold post-harvest

Into the sturdy stay of winter, 

Some muddy stubbled fields 

Are plowed and planted 

Into winter wheat, though 

Other years they’re chuff for cattle. 

I’ll watch these fields around me 

In their indescribable deepness 

Return to what they do,

Snow piling, ground recharging vibrant,

Life of winter, as it reaches

Toward the spring.

Oh, Creator, oh life-maker

I am listening as I turn to you, and 

Watching while outside my windows 

Early snow comes on

In an autumn just a bit too green,

Though when I cast my eyes to heaven 

Some mighty trees bare perfect 
Architecture, glowing up 

My vision to these still lighter skies.

The garden newly put to bed 

Might grow, might even bloom again,

The ground not sure, in her new truth 

But what that all the life out there 

Might grow and bloom again, and so 

If that’s the way it is 

Why not, I say, so what? 

I’ll just have to figure these things out, 

The way I always do.

More to the point, a somber feeling

Casts shadows and I ask myself just 

Where do I fit in 

In such a new earth coming 

With her changings as she makes the 

Imbalance in a perfect

World her perfect? 

Where shall I be out there? 

For now, the clamor and the turmoil 

Quiet into contemplation, into sleep. 

I remind myself that I can’t do 

Much more than try, and, giving in, 

I tell myself

That has to be enough. 

Look Ahead

On the way home tonight

I had to drive to Montour Falls

From Ithaca, not my everyday

Nor unfamiliar, and what I 

Noticed on a southwest drive

Was that there was half moon glowing grey

In a light blue darkening sky

Wisps, cirrus, poofs of palest pink

Top dressing not-vibrant autumn 

Woodlands, almost more sage and grey, but 

Beautiful. 

Cresting the top of some long hill

Maybe around Alpine, a plains opened, 

The sky exploded, but low, 

Wrapping horizon, streaks

Of blood red, I said to myself

Sangre de Cristo, 

And then gold blazed before gone 

And then flash of memory

Chasing sunsets, 

With my brother

One long ago cold January,

From Fort Robinson into far

Wyoming, chasing sunsets,

And then down through Boulder county.

So I wondered why that road of

Many colors made just so much sense

To me, driving home tonight, and it was 

About our possibility, chasing 

Our vast and opening spaces.

I hope this is where 

We are waiting. 

Reckon

It is already winter coming on. 

Hardly even had the time for

That spring.

Worlds collide,

Not just one thing and

Everything as well. 

These are not easy passages, 

In the same way that 

When worlds collide

There is some sense that

Must be made, otherwise

Without one’s own brimming

Scary magic,

(We all have brimming 

Scary magic)

There’s just a long

Dutiful slog through to a grey end, so

I tell myself feel the 

Newness everywhere, and

In the swirl of it all,

I find myself becoming mute

Sometimes, 

Trying hard to listen to 

Myself, not having much to

Give, as I’m taking it all in

I listen to my returning language,

To what wakes with me, what 

Speaks to me, and

I am very quiet listening 

When the night comes on.

All of who I am is whole cloth.

Now, I’ll call these fraying edges lace,

I’ve the feeling that my wings have lift,

I’ve got to think that everything I’ve 

Thought and pondered on is part of

My reality, the bundle 

Of my own life light, and 

The glittering scary magic when 

Those brimming worlds collide ...

It’s the winter part that slays me. 

Jade

On an apple-dappled early fall day,

Clear, brisk, high skies, and wind that

Made the turning, just-harvested 

Cornfields magic in their windy dance,

We were driving with some serenity,

Arriving, she walked with Sarah, back

Towards the sunny apple orchards,

Tugging on

A leash worn never, really, except to

Visit this country vet or go to see family,

But the wind blew her ears back,

And the sun was on her face,

And, Sarah said, she was bursting 

Into the light, she knew that it was coming, just 

As I unhinged myself into the dread,

And went somewhere where I needed to go, 

And then the right arrived. 

Beautiful dog of the earth of this place,

You formed us here, near 

As long, you were,

As we are. 

Here, on this road, in this garden

This pond and rotting, rooting 

Piles of history, you will always live.

All breathing creatures cherish home

In their ways, not all, leaving, take it

With them. 

You are here, sweet girl. 

You are home. 

RIP Jade

2002-2018

Leaving Dover

A moody sky, some spitting rain.  

I write the letter.

I’d booked passage on a packet

Nimble enough for straits,

Sturdy enough 

For heavy seas,

Crossing oceans, 
The fearful tales about 
Roiling unknown waters 

Taking on less freight

Because age leavens just such cargo.

Dearest, I write, 

The seabirds appear and 

Flit across the bow,

I know that means land ho,

But maybe there is no more terra firma 

For a certain travel, so

I write to you in time’s shortening,  

Fulsome gift

Remember that nothing on this earth

Blooms without love. 

Hollyhocks 

Can’t climb the trellis outside the

Pantry window without love,

And love, like those unfurled velvets, has

Many colors, many longings, 

Many ways of being.

Don’t let anything dissuade your gaze

I am grateful, I write, that there are 

Worlds I didn’t know, 

Worlds that struck my speech

And left me watchful, 

Full of wonder

Perhaps I’m daft, I write,

But I’ll never really be old,

I’ll be shaped and riven 

By decades carving me

Into sky, into earth, my less and my more, 

Like elements and rock, like tides 

Eddying into trickles, tides again

Washing over

Everything that comes to us,

There is oneness, there is reason.

Stars bubble through this damp eve,

Grey cannot trick my mind. 

I know they’re out there, stars 

In a cosmos rich with currents,

Energies and unknown. 

I have gone away, but 

I tell you this, deepest and true, 

Love is never left on moor or down,

In mountains, though I tried;

It’s never left in desert, never left,

It just is, becomes into my 

Bones and sinews and heart,

Tears washing like a mighty river, 

Not from sorrow, 

But from release and understanding

In the quiet comes a fleeting chill:

When we go to stars, nothing matters.

Darling, I write, let mystery and the 
Ordinary hover, life’s tensile stitchery

I breathe my leaving caress

Into the twilight,

All I can do 

From this faraway world.

You find, when you need it

The peace

Of love’s abundant universe.

This I write

And this I promise.

Now the light has gone, grey gone.

Night comes on.

Sailing, I am sailing.

Rain

Verges on frightening

Long ago, it was rare to be afraid

So far, the old place is holding

A strangeness I can’t quite describe

Here, home, 

This old place

The way I feel

Feels like flying

Into rain, but doesn’t matter

You know, 

May as well love

Because love is