The Good Seasons

These are your rewards for
not giving into
impatience
hatred
and despair:

the good seasons. One in which
to make reparations
preparations
and repair. That old red-handled
hammer of which we spoke
now firmly in your fist
you won't mind
how your hand
and your arm ache
from striking blow after
blow after blow
you will just keep on standing
in front of the thing you made
with satisfaction
and great pleasure
and well-being
so simple
in your moment.

Another in which
to root
and to bloom. No one can
predict or say
how large
or which color
or whether you will be the
hedgerow, and border plantings
or the morning glories
climbing up
and running riot
and summoning hummingbirds
to drink, and to worship. You won't
care, and it won't matter. That
will be the whole point.

And another
to speak silent prayers
on your lips
and touch your fingertips
to the very tops
of tall grasses
and flowers
and other people's fingertips
that you love
and to be stock-still in fogged and misty mornings
waiting for the sun
and then the excited dance
and the burning off
and the glory
of a blue sky day
and you will cry then
overwhelmed with
the thickness
and density
of pure abundance
face raised
eyes closed
seeing the honeycombed
reds and oranges and
with the joy
of a sinking sun
and the smells of wet leaves
and woodsmoke

one last rose
so pink
or white
so late
on the vine

and of having had
the good seasons

all of this
for you
poised
and yet to come.

Essex County

Here are the fields
just tilled
and dormant
under a weak sun. It isn't
the break of day
or dusk
or even midday
only unremarkable
midmorning.

How can it ever be that
this brown slab will
be so lush
and dense
and fertile
and green
and singing
with crickets
and flashing
with fireflies
on a warm June night?

I cannot decide
what needs to be sown
and what to
patiently wait for
to emerge.

The robins know
they triple hop and
cock their heads
and pause
to listen underneath

what will be

their bright and
rusty red breasts
flashing signals
of hope
and beginning.

Change

A pale pink house
with large windows
and small scrub pines
all alone
on a tiny rise of
solid ground
in the great salt marsh. No one
has lived there
for years
I don't know the story
although someone does.

All the channels
full and level
with the grasses
at high tide. The first time
since the new year
there is more water
than ice. Spring
forcing open
winter's fist.

That house
in the most precarious
of places
and yet
everytime I see it
I want it
to move in
scrub floors
with something
lemon-scented
windows open
for airing
lights back on
bare bulbs only
a few pots, and pans, and
a thrumming 1950's fridge
a big rug
an old couch
everyone come to gather
and drink
and laugh
music drifting over the marsh

the snowy owl
and bittern
silent in the shadows and grasses
unsure
of the new neighbors.

Interpretation

In my mind
during sleep
the night
before last

I am searching
for the dog I lost
in the winter woods
calling everywhere
and running the banks
deep with snow
curling like a full lip
over the dark and fast river
which slides itself
so fluid
around slick black rocks
and a pressured tangle of roots
and branches
and the occasional man-made jewel
of a bobber, or sand-filled plastic bottle, or the
red ring
of a milk cap

the river pulls down at
the interruptions
then rises
and my voice falls away in the gorge
no long reaches here
to hold it

what does it all mean
something lost
a fruitless search
static barrier banks of snow
so hard to move through
in absolute proximity
to facile movement, and ease
though this too inaccessible
in its cold
and slippery
and snarled way

am I the lost
or the seeker
the barrier
the voiceless
or the bright red ring

maybe it means something
the dream itself
a puzzle
with wisdom
as its prize
maybe nothing
just a feel
and a vision
unrelated artifacts
self-germinated
sleeping entertainment

and maybe
it is none of these
symbols
outliers
meanings
and distractions

it is
just the dog itself
sensible enough
to leave
after too much time
in an inhospitable
and narrow place
and find a way home
to a warm bed
and food
and the surprised and
affectionate voices
the gentle touches

of welcome home.

Comment

Prreeeeeeachy. Awful, hate it.

Pfffffffffffffffft.

Flip

I'm going to tell you a little
something about your problem about the way
you take it all a little lightly about the way you
write it out and speak it out and do it all the time I'm going
to tell you there's a hole in your method I'm going to
point it out to you that you are in that dream you are back in
your high school and you are not in your pants and
they're all pointing and
they're all laughing and you can't
be invincible and bullet-proof just by jumping the
gun and beating them to the
punch and the thing is that we can see it
instantly you are making worse than a
fool of yourself you are making a
mockery of what you know and what you are and
that's not satire and that's not comedy and
that's not ballsy and brave that's a
tragic waste of the honest truth that's selling short what
there really is to say that's selling out so that when you
have that chance that moment that time to really say it speak it
be it know it do it feel it you will find yourself without
your voice having worn it out singing ninety-nine
bottles of beer on the wall into the wind and no one was
surprised by ending we all know how it goes and now there you
are with no voice and having painted yourself nicely in this
corner and now the threshold and your audience is way over there
don't risk it don't do it don't
leave it in the margins don't leave it for later get to
work get to work and
say what you know.

Funny

Everything is funny today. I don't know why. It just is.