Solstice

Whippoorwills tonight,
And other birds calling to one
Another, calling
in this long, settling sunset.

Today I thought about
Haying,
In the old days
Scythe and stack,
The ancient rhythm lost to
The now of bailer, rack,
And tractor.

But still quite a thing
Of beauty,
Bringing in the hay.
Last night at Sarah and Robert's
They worked after the solstice
Light had gone

The lingering fields
Awaiting rows and
This day's rhythm carrying their
Work, until they could say
All done.

My own effort just this
Afternoon,
In sudden heat,
To water (mindful of our well),
The vegetables
And the potted things
on porches.

The dry land gardens
Flourishing in
The stone barn beds out back
Know so much more than
I do; persistence, they might

Tell me, is where there is the
Yield.

Grandmother

When he died in the river, 
She knew. In her kitchen the morning stopped short of 
The dawn and centered her stillness on water, 
The smell of sawdust from his overalls 
Filling the room as the teakettle whistled, unheard.
His black eyes and rough smile had taken her balance, his 
Force flickering fierce as days’ doors closed them in, 
And every small light passing between them 
Just ripened her knowing, her ken, 
So that long before men holding hats in their hands 
Moved through the morning to bring her the news,

Her heart had just plunged from future, from dreams. 
Maybe that knowing had nothing to do with 
Their bond, but burned up through her sinews and cells 
From the dust of her sisters and mothers, countries of women
Whose limitless borders were porous beyond time and 
Geography’s edge; her way in the world at one with 
The eons, structuring passages always unknown.
But she knew, and over the years there were times that her 
Spirit went out to meet what would happen again:

Dead cat in a ditch, clock stopped in a parlor far from the death,
Anticipation designing her motion through life

And her energy more than one woman’s should be.
He died in steel waters, under rough rafts 
Breaking up in the night, logs flailing in storm-darkened
Violence before it subsided, mist floating in daybreak, 
Calm flows carrying him far from the chaos where 
Fate and chance tumbled his life to its’ close. 
She’s been waiting for me, reaching to show me, stepping through 
Time and into the knowing where memory hovers, mine and the others, 
Her memory and theirs: apprehending, guiding and telling. 
I wake up to myself, and remember my way 
Back to my Grandmother, and them.

Returning From Taos

Tonight the half-moon is bright,
Shining like a perfect scepter
in the gift of black sky,

And across this small landscape
Gardens, projects, homeostases
Birth

I suppose finding home 
Is really about finding the pieces
Of internal peace, external peace

In some ways I was building home,
Criss-crossing the country in 
Ways that make sense to me
Collecting them

Brilliant, this half-moon,
Steady through the window's ellipse
and like a beacon --

Better yet, a streetlight,
Hovering skytime streetlight
On home's cosmic corners --
Here, it says, you
Assemble home. 

Early Spring

Across the valley lights are sparse;
Beyond, dark swaths of near-farmlands
Stretch the length of lake for
More than forty northern miles.

In an almost black sky, unseen stars
Whisper just enough of light to illumine
Peel of moon behind layered cirrus
That turned horizon violet as sun rolled
From edge of sight.

An hour earlier, wind sudden-stopped,
Bird song dissipated, faint scurrying movement,
Snap of twig, and then the
Hovering stillness.

There we sat, bundled in the cold spring,
Sarah and I, watching Robert's lanky form
Some paces from us
Move toward the setting sun
And disappear into new-blooming night.

Finding Cranes

Last night, an old friend said

She thought she and another old friend

Would go out finding cranes.

I imagine, remembering that.

We go to a rutted road along the river

It is not a farm road,

Nor a river road.

It hugs the Platte,

Overlooks a very old cottonwood that

Was downed in a storm,

And lashed not to sky

But to earth

And over time enough

Jutted a perch over the

River,

Where the

Children toddled and looked at the

Wide world there.

As years moved on

We went to watch for the cranes

When they came back

In the chilled and stubbled spring

Sometimes still frozen.

Maybe we never realized

They went away.

In some ways, they really do not go away.

The thickets on the river bank, young cottonwood,

Maybe chokecherry,

Tufty grass, and tiny blue wild daisies

And sky enough to settle

All these years on

Remember me

To then.

We had to listen, and be still

Sometimes to almost hold our frosty breaths

We had to hope we’d find the spot they

Found

The cranes,

Their darkening skies returning

Finding home

Keeping Light

Straying toward light at late day's end,

Room warm, suffused,

The intensity of lowering illumination on the book's page

Making the words impossible to see

And the images, looking up, 

Impossible to apprehend in their blinding fade

Mostly

The man sleeps, exhausted,

On the small chaise,

Working unmitigated hours and

Not really knowing what the next chapters might be.

His snoring tells me

He is away, 

Returned to whatever unclaimed 

Pinnacles and unsettled battles in the 

Woodlands and swampy marshes

His wild mind discovers in this, his other 

World, his far, chaotic realm,

And I gaze on the vulnerable him,

Trying to remember love and passion,

And finding just some deep repose 

Of knowing:

Pity and regard in the twisted crosshairs of long enduring,

Shredded with hope and leavened by

The magic light. 

From the High Fields to the Fire

Across a snowy landscape

In reverie

Things stitch together

Under lace of smoke, pluming from the fire into

Ice that hangs in air,

The curl of years

Weaving through the vision's

Gray winter afternoon,

Heart beating,

Grateful

Contemplative

Pausing in emotion's balance --

Brought on by years and

The running out of time, when

Just a few magisterial snows are left,

Each one amplifying my repose

By gently covering all that is

Unnecessary

And nurturing what is left --

Suddenly I see so clearly

How the belt of snow and cap of sky,

Their spare distinctions elemental,

Encompass all that anyone might ever need to find,

To nourish everlasting, back

From the high fields to the fire.