Enough time to grow weary,
but more time to grow strong–
three years go by quietly
but the day is yet long

It’s enough for the babe
to take her first steps,
to mouth then speak
words, full sentences yet

And moving from childhood
through middle school angst
brings braces and romance
and Mockingbird tastes

From sophomore year high school
To college dorm frats
The young grow to manhood
with off-key jazz skats

It’s a long time to whistle,
a long time to pray,
I’ve been whittling the hours
and daylight away

Here on this keyboard
mostly at night
A new poem I conjure
to summon the light.

Three years go by quickly;
there’s little to share.
The turtle keeps racing,
out-foxing the hare.

Keeping one’s mouth closed,
especially at times like these,
an unused talent wasted on me.
I have found an inordinate
number of reasons to comment
when it would have been best
to let it be.

As evening’s chill creeps ever closer,
the light slouches behind the ridge,
and the dogs bay for their supper on the porch.
The older hound, the brother, nudges
his litter-mate sister in order to be the first
whose nose will catch the scent of the meal.
He dotes on the female, plays rough
to show who is boss, but gentle enough.
He lay beside her the time she broke her back;
the recovery was long. He is her best friend.
There is no solace like that of a dog and his sister.
They both sport traditional white collars, short hair
saddle brown markings, and droopy ears
that make their breed so recognizable.
I would like to play with them all day
and have them jump on my bed at night
and steal my pillow or have my feet warmed
by their heat. And the male has arthritis,
his joints ache as he shuffles to the sliding door
to tell me with his smiling, pleading eyes,
that he loves me more than I love him,
unconditionally. Suddenly, I realize
that if I were to see a poor man
this very minute, I would give him
everything I owned.

Porcupines are odd creatures–
perhaps as unusual as bluebirds.
Really. Have you considered that each don
unusual apparel while jays squawk
excessively? In flocks, jays squawk
excessively.

Anteaters are also a bit absurd–
much like a hummingbird.
Exactly. Have you seen the tongue
of a hummingbird as it darts unseen for
nectar? Like lightening, it darts
unseen.

Sloths capture the imagination, too–
similar to the box turtle.
Yes. Have you imagined the two
racing at top speeds toward nowhere
in a tie? Racing at top speeds, they
tie.

People are the other enigma–
like storm cloud formations over canyonlands.
Unequivocally. Have you been amazed
by their vibrant hues then seen them
dissipate? In storms, their vibrant hues
dissipate.

I truly like a million things–
books, poems, piano jazz, diamond rings;
but of all the likes, I like
you best. Too bad you left
me here alone.

I like the trees and ocean floor;
there’s something to be said
of liking more than just the surf,
the waves and such. A striped shrimp
just joined our lunch.

True, I’m fond of dogs and sloths;
for that I often pay a cost;
Bernese mountain pups and Siamese cats
top cliched likes of this and thats–
along with you, of course.

Cloud formations inspire lines
about the heavens and fireflies
And Galapagos isles create a verse
about some other favorite firsts
Like the penguins who tarry there
among the tortoise and sea hare.

Yes, those animals and ocean things,
clouds, Keats, hounds, concert strings…
all hard to think about just now
(or pen rhyming schemes or stanzaic forms)
since you’ve abandoned me, you cow.

In fact, the diction remains pedestrian
since emotion inebriates the poet’s pen;
(he warned writing now might prove a fuss)
Alas, all liked things have packed their stuff
and climbed aboard the outbound bus

with you.

Tonight, the stockings came off
their hallowed hooks along the hearth
and now sit up like a cluster of newborns
wrapped tightly in swaddling clothes
and leaned against the sofa pillows
stuffed to the ruff with inconsequential
trinkets and sweets at midnight,
enduring winter’s eve like the
wildlife beyond the walls
just a few yards away among the redwoods.

And when the children pull and pour
out the contents upon the Berber rugs
across the land, the stockings languish,
empty, impotent for another 364 days.

Many walks in my life
challenged, consoled, inspired
me–it is the walk, after all,
where things happen

Like on the road to Damascus
or that famed walk in the woods
by Thoreau, Bryson, Winnie the Pooh

Maybe it has to do with the air
in the woods. Crisp, freshly
oxygenated, but damp, too

Or perhaps it is the solitude,
like Emerson claimed we need,
when we escape our lives

For me, the walk, whether
down the aisle or around the
block has meant something more

Always ending up here on the page
I circle back for meaning
wondering who or what will appear.

It’s not like I’ve never been
on the edge of my seat–
I’ve been there plenty of times

Like watching the 1980 Olympic
Ice Hockey team defeat Russia
Or Elizabeth Proctor telling a lie

Not unlike cheering the thoroughbred
who edges out his opponent
in a Santa Anita photo finish

I’ve also seen those rock climbers
who, poised on the edge of the cliffs,
give me palpitations

Or the looney bin escapees
who crest the bluff
of Niagara in a barrel

That, an interesting obsession
for sure–bobbing along and then
dropping into the deathly plunge pool

Or my teetering on the brink
of this page where I find myself
paddling frantically upstream

from the topic of you.

Blocks of time-certain testing,
presenting, performing,
praying.
And once final, breath.

If I had conjured all images
of bumpy, green cucumbers
drowned in briny baths
waiting languidly in potbellied
barrels on the mercantile counter,
I may have written a poem about
a pickle that you may have known–

not, however, the pickle that now
faces me.

This particular pickle found
its way into my stomach
when I opened my big mouth
and bit down hard on something
that was deceptively palatable
but decidedly distasteful–

as salty as an old dog,
his tail wagging to the beat
of “Oh, Waly, Waly, Gin Love be Bonny.”

No, this poem sprang not
from your faint words
nor the silence
nor the coming deluge
of my broken heart.

This poem was written
on the cold concrete floor
of the warehouse in NoHo
Not one scent of comfort
in the winter air–

Despite the hint
of rhubarb pie
and espresso.

Yes, the narrator has
complete control
over sense and sorrow,
never letting emotion
choose the words
nor passion fuel the poem.
Yes, logic has beaten
down love, and reason
done away with pain.

I imagine a different day;
even yesterday,
a day when platitudes about
holidays, especially those
that demand gratefulness,
felt free of that syrup
that slowly drips
across the airwaves
and through our wireless portals
laced with black Friday specials
and scented with sage and
a side of thirty-year old
green bean casserole.

And tomorrow. Tomorrow
may be quite a day, too,
as the relief of surviving
all of the food fuss
and rattled nerves creates
one tremendous sigh
and leftover mashed potatoes,
and I return to unforced
thoughts of what really matters
and not the pile of dishes.
You know, those dishes
like the gravy boat that only
make an appearance once a year.

Maybe Thanksgiving sets
the mind straight, maybe
in the feasting we gain
gratitude along with
those two extra pounds.
Let us hope if I speak my thanks
now, no one will be surprised
because he already knows.

I will say it all again
on Monday or Tuesday anyway,
to the same people
I always say it to.
I will leave no one out–
even those who would
prefer not to hear it.
The universe demands.

Yes, I might even invite
those same ungratefuls
home for pie.

It begins and ends here
awake in the middle of the night
ruminating about the dogs,
the kids, the actors, the poets,
the impossible nature
of middle-age.

Could it be that just as Homer
was telling the story of the Lotus Eaters
He was wishing to find such an island?
Or when Dante visited the underworld,
he was not so afraid of dying
but rather intrigued by what Hamlet
feared most, sleep.

Yes, sleep, that would be it.
Perhaps a nap somewhere
in the Caribbean, or even a few
winks here in my own bed–
how lovely to dream about
a morning arrived at like Queen Mab.

But no, the clock ticks by, the mice,
finished with their scurried race
up and down the clock, rest curled up
in their little nest, and I,
I who am waiting for the fairy dust
to settle, yawn and think,
I wish I were a mouse.

That, of course, becomes
fodder for yet another tangent
that steals fifteen more minutes
of sleep, and so I write a poem
And wonder who will care
about the mouse except to
figure out how to snap its puny
little neck for daring to curl up
in my house.

I wrote a love poem
the one you forgot to read
I will write no more

If I were to read a poem at a meeting
I would probably choose, “The Trouble With Poetry,”
not because it is my favorite, but rather
because Emily Dickinson, Edgar Poe, even
Homer, Chaucer, and Dante Alighieri
Just have not been able to crack this
thing wide open on their own.

Really, if I could begin the next faculty meeting
with something other than how many
students are in crisis, how many mandates
the state has enacted but neglected
to fund, I think I could leave Billy Collins
to those of us who love beautiful irony
as opposed to the crueler variety.

But, no, the revolution he began,
to bring poetry outside of the classroom
closet, has found its way back
to the steps of the schoolhouse,
knocking and waiting, waiting and
knocking, for a chance
to instruct, not the students,
but the teachers, not the masses,
but me.

Our neighbor moved out today
not because of our barking dogs
nor the blower we use to clear the leaves

Of course, the way we set off fireworks
just as the lights go out each night
could have driven them away, I guess.

But not the way the Nez Pierce and Mormons
were driven out of their settled homes,
Despised and misunderstood.

It might have been our five cars
spilling out onto the street from the driveway,
or perhaps our kids playing with guns,

the BB type, shooting pennies the way
Booth shot our president that night at Ford’s.
Everyone moving out in horror–

Not the way these neighbors moved
this morning, maybe hoping for refuge from us,
him needing solace, her hospice.

They grow on the tree,
and fall under it
Not far from it—
One bad one can indeed
spoil more than just
the rest of the barrel;
in fact, one a day
can bankrupt the entire
medical profession even
before the insurance
companies do.

Alas, when they
are served a la mode
it’s hard to believe that
that it took Adam so long
to take a bite; oh, but maybe
the pair partook of a pear.
And that poor Steve Jobs,
getting rich on a Macintosh
but that could not save his life
nor could it stop Snow White’s
huntsman from killing the pig
a very Lord of the Flies moment.
Poor pig.

And when everyone sits down
at the Thanksgiving table
and plays, being careful not to compare
oranges to bananas,
I thank the good Lord for you,
my pupil, and wonder
how you got into my eye
in the first place.

On the ride in to work, my daughter
asked me to play “Truth or Dare.”
I laughed aloud at the request.

“Isn’t that the game where friends
dare you to kiss the boy who you think
is the cutest in the room?” I ask.

Or maybe you have to answer
a question truthfully, like
Whom do you love but won’t tell?

She assures me that this game
will not have those kinds of questions.
I believe her and agree to play.

“So,” she begins, “What’s the worst
feeling you have ever felt and when
was the last time you felt it?”

I don’t think she has ever missed
someone the way I have missed
you. “Missing someone.”

“And when did you last feel it?”
She asks innocently enough.
Just now. “Oh, a while ago.”

As it goes
So it goes

You can lead a horse
to a drink

but he may want
something stiffer

You can teach
old dogs

there are no
new tricks

And so the saying
goes and
goes

Writing the perfect, peaceful poem
usually requires undisturbed time
at a desk in a well lit room–
without perhaps what readers
might imagine to be that cool jazz
and scent of lily filling the room,
or that sun sphere, retiring
from a busy day, illuminating
the masses, that must be casting
its long rays across that imaginary
forest viewed through my frosted window
while the poem glides
ever so gracefully through
the ink onto the page.

No, chances are, the day
is slightly chaotic, the writing
fraught with fidgeting forays
into clunky language describing
landscapes and sounds,
none even remotely close
now except for maybe
my photo album from
the trip to Alaska seven years ago
or the sucking noise of the vacuum.
.
And then, a long delay
in writing when incessant
distractions subside, and I
foolishly check my email
and find a pompous demand
from a zealot and my emotions
spin, allowing anger to murder
the serenity of the blossoming
Lapland Diapensia
or the perfect metaphor
rising from the frozen tundra
leaving only
memories of that flat tire
three hundred miles from Tok.

Friday night traffic eats into my sanity
in a different way than Monday morning traffic
or internet traffic or the air traffic controller’s
traffic or the trafficking of young girls
or weapons or kilos of cocaine.

Autos and trucks merge on and off
as quickly as banana slugs emerge in
rainwater. The flood of red taillights
creates seas of cars going exactly where
I need to go when I need to get there.

And how is that?

These people do not live with me
or even near me, and yet they all
want to be in my lane turning
on the street I need to turn on
at the very same time I need to turn

Why don’t I know them?

They are not strangers, these commuters
who look so weary on the eve of weekend
revelry. Inside their metal carriages,
and perhaps inside their craniums,
they are the heroes of some other’s life.

Their day, like mine, filled with small victories
and minor defeats, began early–ended late
and somewhere in between they wondered
when Friday would arrive. On Friday evening,
they would head home next to me in traffic.

Books make marvelous bricks
that weigh me down, sink me
to the bottom of today
or build me up like
pyramids in Giza.

They are so much the building blocks
of my character. I come to life
to read, and die when I finish,
except in books
by Billy.

When those poems arrive,
all bound and tethered together,
I pack my bags and go along
for the Sunday drive. He brings me
with him like he promised he would.

I am not aimless in my love,
it belongs to you and just a few,
without whom I would only show
a portion of my tortured soul
only to be whole again.

Despite streets devoid of cars
and politicians and clerks
on Sunday holiday, the day hums
with calm breezes, cathedral doors
stand open as I walk in solitude
down sidewalks wide enough to make me feel
insignificant yet alive.

Momentary encounters blossom
new thoughts,from sadness
spring smiles, large edifices
pierce the marine blue sky,
homeless men recite Collins poetry
about where they live as they drink
waiting for a better day,
the day I am having,
as the leaves fall
and sycamores sway.

It used to be that I would walk the halls

and think about the great work done

here among and on behalf of the next generation.

Today, however, the small oak tree outside

my office window came down. It had died,

probably a slow, painful death, strangled

from water, leaves curling, turning brown

until she had to be cut down to preclude falling,

knocking out some unsuspecting teenager.

Would that be so bad? Could I choose the teenager

who might be sitting beneath that beloved tree

as it careened to the asphalt in the center of the quad

in the center of the school that is the center of the community

that is just off-center from the land of silicon?

I could name one or two whose head, swollen

with self-importance, would survive the blow

but maybe be knocked sensible in the process.

That, of course, would not be becoming

of me, a person in my position, to wish for–

a lover of children and especially teenagers

even when they say hurtful things, disrespect

their parents, crash their car in a mad dash

for the sandwich shop at noon. No, I dare not

wish the child to be near that oak, that once

beautiful tree, when it dips its last time in the wind.

There is something quite sad about the loss of a tree,

or a dog, or a friend, or even the thought of one.

It makes me want to be kind to the trees,

but not necessarily you.

Was it you who told me how much
you loved The Giving Tree?
How lovely it was that the tree
gave her all to the boy, the man,
the one who ultimately killed her
by taking everything she had?

Oh, but it is just an extended metaphor,
you say just as you ask me nicely
for my last dollar, my last moment
to listen to you marvel at how life
had treated you so unfairly?

Too bad the giving tree had not
sliced her branches into a switch
to lay you down and tell you
that nap time is coming to you
regardless of your age,
that if you touch one more
of her lovely loose leaves
she will haul off and knock
you silly.

Poppycock and pine trees replace summer
haystacks and alfalfa fields that teem with titmice
long into summer while boys grow
into manhood and women long for love.

Cumulus clouds billow up from my mountain
laced landscape, and I turn inward as the dews
begin to freeze in the early morning hours
of this autumn transformation.

How is it, I think, that the season,
like poor Persephone stolen away
from the home she loved,
can capture me so fully?

I turn to you, poet laureate and pal
To make sense of the inward unraveling,
the inescapable crack up of that summer
joyfulness and sunshine bliss

And you tell me, in that way of yours,
that peace is in the moment and that
power is in the words, and that tonight,
of all nights, I should relax and enjoy the stars.

So I look up, and sure enough, the moon
has come out to play. Oh, Moon, how kind of you
to remind me that we are here together
and what I see is sunlight coming from you.

I brush up against my own thoughts
when thinking of you.
How is it that I can move
so silently toward my grave
while smiling and laughing
at the top of my lungs?

What will you do to atone
for your life of self-indulgence?

When my thoughts touch my thighs
I bristle at their stiffness.
Their pricks remind me that you
are nowhere to be found–
only my memory of midnight
and the clattering of my sanity against
the floorboards beneath your bed.

I lay my head down now
and try not to think.

Perhaps, such an indefinite word.

Angry birds, stellar jays and woodpeckers,
squawk and drill beyond the window sill.

I watch, curious about their antics.
Their shrill sounds blast, muted by the pane glass.

Steam from the morning’s mint tea
Gradually obscures my view.

But the screeching and the knocking

scratch against my throbbing eardrums,

And my inner voice screams epithets
upon your name while angry birds do the same.

I ironed my slacks this morning

and then my shirt, and wondered

why the fuss? What, pray tell,

is wrong with wrinkles?

When he crinkles his nose,

how is that not as appealing

as the smooth face of the stoic

or smile lines of the aged chief?

Why is one grandmother,

spared from time’s unenviable tracks

by her own gene pool, complimented

while the other is pitied for the well earned

folds that testify to her endurance?

The scarce commodity of time

creates its own type of pressing.

But if you want to see what pressing

actually does, just ask Giles Cory

or the great criminals of

of Greek and Roman mythology,

such as the Judas-like Tarpeia who

betrayed Rome for a necklace.

Sit with me at the school

conference table with a parent.

When she begins a line of questioning

and her eternal condemnation unfurls

as she lifts the great stone

of judgment above her head

readying for the drop,

her offspring remains inert–

not realizing that he could leave the table,

go outside, breathe fresh air,

save his life, remain beautifully himself–

wrinkled a bit, but beautiful.

Ask me tomorrow
My decision rules today
But I am tired.

It would be lying to say

I haven’t waited all day

for word from you.

…

You, who has my filial

heart and imprisoned soul

marching like zombies

around your imperious being.

….

Yes, it would be a lie

to speak about you

as an after thought,

a smidgen of remembrance,

as if I did not know you well.

…..

Well, I do know you,

and I give you no pardon,

unless, of course, you

ask for one.

Another year slid by
without a host of hullabaloo
or even a confetti popper
signifying its passing.

And the lines in the stores
and on the freeways at six
stand still as the lines in my
skin deepen and fold.

Turning 50 made me feel entitled
to rant or cry or speak my mind,
but this year, I do not want to
sign that book or tell off the world.

Instead, I want to go back
to the bookstore,
talk about poetry and lore,
find myself with Whitman

buying groceries with Ginsberg,
walking quietly in the woods,
finding beauty in the simple
things that surround me.

Perhaps even you might
consider joining me,
talking for hours about
meaning and madness.

I cannot write about Seamus Heaney

found just months before his death

but whose influence informed my mentor

thus informing me.

 

Not unlike my great aunt, who I never knew,

who painted and sculpted and whose

art I have never seen, but it informed

my grandmother, my mother, and me.

 

There is nothing to say about how Sophocles

influenced Aristotle other than Plato

knew them both, and Plato probably used that

connection to sway his student.

 

And when I read of blackbirds and the poetry

of the Bog,  I wonder how it affects

the marginalia and the order of words

and the outcome of this verse.

For a moment, I thought you were God,
entering my room with chariots
and trumpets sounding the millennial song.

Entering my room with chariots

You commanded my attention

And swept away my reserves in one breath.

—

You commanded my attention

Introducing me to dramatic turns

Filling me up with the fire of youth.

—

Introducing me to dramatic turns

Pulling me headlong and swirling

Into the deepest recesses of my soul.

—

Pulling me headlong and swirling

First through the door of the theater

Finally, through redemption’s fire.

—

First through the door of the theater

With trumpets sounding the millennial song

and for a moment, you were a god.

I’m still pretty damn raw
like the grated peel of a lemon
flayed and zested
by your words

Peeled at length
like the outer skin of the
mango and the papered
skin of the Ajo clove

I find my eyes watering
the aging sides of my face
not because of what you say
but because of who you are

Sonnets and sestinas and stanzaic choice
sent me out with my head hung low.
All the grace of every poem had what
I had opted not to own–

Rhyme and meter, influence, too
Had Billy pressed that more than once?
The form is almost everything
Or so I thought, yeah, me the dunce.

I marveled at the dog and chair
that sit so quietly by the stairs
and then I thought about the form,
loving masters, hearts forlorn.

And it all fell apart one line at time.
It simplified and lost it’s rhyme.
and soon enough I had a poem
that meant nothing, so I went home.

I have been fighting with the ants all day
only to realize that the battle ended
several millennia ago with me losing
to the army of minuscule foot soldiers.

It began on Wednesday evening
under the tent where we ate dinner.
The ants and I, I mean. Everyone else
seemed unaware of their invitation.

A few bold ones crashed our party
then brought their friends and their drunk
uncle who could not follow a straight line
to save his life.

And I, constantly brushing them off the table
as they intruded so rudely into my conversations
sipping my spilled drink, nibbling my crumbs
zigzagging away with my concentration.

Not that Descartes was wrong,
but thinking and being deviate.
The first, impossible without about
The second, a matter not up to me.

I did not think myself into existence,
but I can think myself out.
If I think about you, I am human.
If I love you, I am a slave to thought.

And the red balloon launches into flight
just before dawn raises her golden head
and sleep changes my thought to dreams.
Ah, to dream. There’s that nasty rub.

Try being an old tire. Sit atop the heap
of worn tread mounds south of Modesto
near the cattle holding pens
of the slaughter house.

Check your habits, measure your bio footprint.
Waste not want not, or so they say.
Some people are not made of rubber,
most have traces of gold.

Ask yourself, what is it to endure imperfection?
Who has not pointed out parsley smiles,
corrected an upturned shirt collar,
forgiven a misspoken word?

Just confess it: you replace people
the way I replace old tires. Yes, well,
there certainly are plenty of people
in the world to love in a lifetime, son.

No one wants to be a type
and yet we all are.
Perhaps he wants
rock star fame, or she,
a physicist’s Noble prize
or a mother’s long-suffering life.

But typed, no.

Some do rise—

Take Steinbeck, for instance,
or Gates and Jobs,
Mother Teresa,
John Wayne,
Picabo Street

What types they created!

Oh, and then there’s
that other type:
the no-type-for-me type.
Ha!

Imagine that.
The type without a name—
The “broke the mold” type
one of a million.

I sat with him, at least I think I sat,
drooling over simple things,
the words, that make him Billy Collins.
I listened to his recent stories
about staying with his billionaire friend,
about servants and piaya dinners
on the beach in the Hamptons.
About how odd it felt to actually pay

for a meal after living the high life.

About how the Hamptons
used to not be the Hamptons.

We sat on folding chairs

at a lopsided table

with our Styrofoam plates
and plastic utensils ,

under a tent.

I listened until a lone ant
caught my eye. Unaware
of the company, it crawled

across the table in Star of David

patterns from plate to plate,

looking for a meal or at least a path
back to its hill in the grass.

Inspired by Frank O’Hara’s “Autobiographia Literaria” and Billy Collins

When I was a child,
I cried from my hospital
bed for my parents. They
brought me a Siamese
fighting fish in a bowl.

Later, I loved school but hated
the first day, the abandonment,
the new people,
old and young who seemed
too happy to be there.

I cried then, too, for
familiar faces, and then
told everyone I was three,
not five so they would not
judge me.

And here I am, the
dreaded vice principal
all proud and poetic!
Loving the newness!
Writing!

Carousel of carved horses—
quiet pink mares, white steeds
popcorn kernels, grains of sand
a lost blue flip flop—
Wooden coaster tracks, empty cars
ticket turnstiles
taffy wrappers, trash cans,
red ketchup bottles in a row
abandoned castles, buckets, pails,
a child’s footprints.

       Inspired by Robley Wilson’s
      “I Wish in the City of Your Heart” and Billy Collins

I wish in the apple of your heart
the seeds swaddled within
would once again sprout and root
and the pulp of its white flesh
would feed your love
for me. I remember when
the red promise of sweetness
would slowly find its way to the outer skin,
and you would begin to blush.

Instagram flashes faces
Of young people frozen in
frames reminding me of the days when
every adventure was that of a lifetime,
when the first plane trip soared the highest,
when Mickey and Cinderella lived for real
in Walt’s magical kingdom,
when hitching Eurail tracks, backpack
and wanderlust in tow,
formed me.

Now, time and the collective memory
of every trip, every expectation, every friend
every love and lost love, every new interest
become the comparative lens
through which I judge each new journey.
So tonight, on the cusp of what for me
is both brilliantly simple and outrageously
complex, I wonder if I should dare…

Rarely does my 50-year old self
feel the excitement,  a true anticipation.
Rarely do I let the adrenaline flow
the way it did for my five year-old niece
when the princesses appeared on Main Street,
Rarely, do I risk the kind of criticism
that I so freely dished out for 20 years

to my 3000
students.

But tonight. It is as if
some starstuff has been spared
for a 50 year old poet
and her dream.

Thanks, Tink.

It wasn’t the long path
or the narrowness of the way
that kept me close.
It was the bicycle.
While others may have considered
that they might lose sight
of the destination
or be bitten by poisonous
snakes–you know, they have
them in these parts–
I was not inclined to worry.
After all, we traveled fast
Past the flora that was
inching itself ever nearer
the center of the trail.
Oh, moments here and there
made me wonder why
I had agreed to this ride,
but it was you
who so desperately wanted
to try out this bike,
and I figured,
What the heck,
How dangerous could it
possibly be? Oh,
and why am I in front?

I thought when I left the house
this morning
That I would find you sitting
beneath the Silk Wood tree–
waiting for me to apologize
yet again.
How silly that thought!
Especially after I bound up
in words all of my anger
and disappointment in you
just the other night.

And I think I was told to assume
radio silence…no, I was told to assume
radio silence. But I, being the one who
chose the oboe, moved overseas,
left the man of my dreams
for the security of a more predictable
lover only to be lashed
into silence, I am no longer likely
to sit around and wait for you
to call. I see the glaring errors
of my ways–the sad attempts
at connection, the longing for
a friendly voice. But I don’t

think I did you wrong.

Despite it all, I will think
of you fondly even though it was
you who said goodbye.

And then, when I saw

that you are not there–

I did something I have
not done in many years, even decades:
I went  to sleep tonight before midnight,
And in that sleep I dreamt that you
came home at dawn; I dreamt
that I nodded as if to say,
“Welcome home. I have missed
you.”

I dreamt it all tonight before midnight.

The farmer from up the road
stopped by last month
Asking to set up a little house for jays.
Seems they were near extinction at one point,
Had a hard time competing with the sparrows.
Could he post one here?
Nests need to be every quarter mile—
And could you mow the grass some,
And keep the goats away,
Oh, and the dogs.
You know, those jays are just making
A comeback
Really would like to help them out some.
So, what do you say?

And the pole and house went up
And a jay tested the nest
And the sparrows darted by
In jealous fits wishing that the blue birds
Would find a different neighborhood
In which to live—

But the jay returned in spite
Of all the ruckus.