Go Outside

You can say it with a weary tone
or tell them on the telephone;
It can be an exhortation
or the fruit of inspiration --
Go outside!
You'd be punished in the winter
and the weather always hinders
at the most convenient times,
but when the sun still shines,
Go outside!
With computers and constraints
plus those couch potato plaints
make it easy to just sit,
but you simply must not quit --
Go outside!
They'll thank you later (or never)
and you have to know that ever,
there's a reason to obey
and get in the yard to play:
Go outside!

Mon., Mar. 30

The "ring of truth"
on countertops
will validate a coin,
no base metal here
and all we hear
is the tone of purity.
Your currency
that folds into a wallet,
purse, or pocket
is proven by a marker
drawn at the register
where distracted cashiers
check, somewhat.
An internet transaction
has icons to give a hint
of security and validity
to let us sleep assured.
Could an audible tone
be added to my browser,
a Roman coin on marble
ringing, the sound of truth
singing, to ease my doubt
and find me out
the basis of my buying?
Or is the truth
when found online
always silent,
without proving,
not really knowing
until the quiet numbers
tap and click their way
to a reassuring column
of zeros.
Unless that's where i began.
Unreality has no song,
no sound, but that's the music
our money now makes,
getting quieter all the time,
except for the occasional thunder,
the rumble of vast, distant shifting
as if a pile in a nearby warehouse
broke loose, and fell to earth;
the thud of truth.

Sun., Mar. 29

Storms are scrubbing
the pavements, the lawn,
sweeping off the grime and grit
from months of winter now done.
Spring cleaning is more
than a verbal metaphor.
All nature wants to clean house,
except where the limbs fall,
and birds peck soil into heaps
(someone always gets in the way
of a big cleaning project).
Now the wintry clutter
of "what i'll do indoors"
meets the piles of
"what has to be done outdoors"
and is spaded over by
"what has to happen this summer."
Maybe fertile thoughts will grow
from this over-manured plot,
or just more weedy vines run amok
that will need pruning and culling.
It's hard
to get into all the corners
and spring clean as you ought.
The storms won't do it all.

Sat., Mar. 28

Misty morning fog
clinging in the valleys
where they'd only just arose,
cloud shield heavy across
a sky in heavy drapes
of maroon and dusty rose.
Strips of blue and purple
band the azure distant hills,
filtering the sun's slow rising.
A dissected sphere of orange
lifts imperturbably,
imperceptibly climbing,
into the azure, breaking warmly gold;
driving, my thoughts are black, and white, and cold.

Fri., Mar. 27

He liked the clatter,
the rattle, the battering
of the balls against each other
and around the vast funneled bowl
where he was dropping them,
in handfuls,
down the track that spun them 'round.
The display was meant to teach something
about gravity, or momentum, or spin
but it just makes me think of
black holes,
a space ship or planet
orbiting to doom,
and disappearance.
(Except here the dimensional rift
pops out in a tray underneath.)
When my son tired of the scoop and drop
and thundering roll of handfuls of balls,
the last few played out their hand
undisturbed by random tangents.
Their steady whirl slowed even a boy's eyes,
watching them dance within and beyond
each other's rule bound path.
Two found each other with a crack,
snapping back in reversed course,
and smacking into one another square once again,
then spinning down into the throat of black.
The last few drew tighter and tighter
to the game's close, and then one,
and finally the other,
spun undone into the unreachable,
irrevocable drop --
but the last one found the line,
where a wall-clinging rotation
grew faster and faster
while whirring with
insistence, and
persistence,
to an unbearable
pitch until it
plunked
down,
gone.
"OK, let's go."
If only I could walk away so calmly,
not reading any needless meaning into that display,
about gravity, or momentum, or entropy, or something.

Thurs., Mar. 26

"It's going in the trash"
the threat is often said.
Assembling monstrous piles of grunge
has to the garbage led.
Disposal is dismissal,
what's tossed is no more worth
the keeping in this house for long
when space is at a dearth.
What should be thrown?
Opinions vary, and some
can only gather, and bury
their floors and shelves in tons
of hoarded notes and hunted books.
Others toss with abandon gleeful,
fearing not the loss of stacks,
but whacks the piles as they deem needful.
One to toss and one to save,
such pairings often come to grief,
while we negotiate, concede,
to seek some shared relief.
She tolerates full shelves,
and stuff that once would horrify her,
and he grimly throws out much that once
he'd reach into a fire for.
We're learning from each other still
yet have a ways to go,
in learning what is dear to each:
and it changes as we grow.

Who Was That, Again?

You spoke of friends,
well, acquaintances
whose lives had left our sphere,
and I recalled a story
from their time when they were near.
I wasn't sure how close I'd track
their journeys now long after,
but your energy and hopefulness
told a tale among the laughter.
Should I keep up with every one
who chose a different path?
Their twining, branching avenues
would be a task to track.
My life would wind with theirs, no doubt,
through newer aims and angles,
even if I had the time to take
a course through joys and wrangles.
They extend me, and I should stretch,
while I see in myself a thoughtless wretch
for holding back
from all their tangles.
A lightly pruned life is not more tidy,
but it can be lived more simply.

Wed., Mar. 25

Learning happens easier
when we're learning what we know,
and hearing comes the clearest
when we know what's just been said;
To get expected outcomes
is what always makes most sense,
so breakthroughs barely reigster
before they're left for dead.
An unexpected happenstance
is easy to mislay,
we pick it up bemusedly
and toss it right away.
What clings to us so closely
is the coat, the cloak of 'known',
while connections unfamiliar
are rarely made our own.

Tues., Mar. 24

Letters, words,
phrases, sentences,
tack them together longer,
do they make more sense,
or less?
If you hurry and misspell,
it might make sense;
a muddled sentence can make nearly none,
and a beautifully written,
but sloppily done
article or essay
can actually drive sense
or substance away,
and leave you dizzy.

Refrigerator magnet poetry
isn't quite at random,
might be even poetic,
but they have to do the work
of holding up lists
and school pictures first.
Corners of artworks
or coupons get uncurled,
or boundaries are marked
across the front of the door.
Then they get to be a poem,
if there's time.

Much of poetry is needed
to hold together hearts,
tell stories,
share a picture across
a space, from era to era.
Poems can set a tone,
they get asked to start an event,
or end one;
sometimes they punctuate a program
where speeches get made
and a breath must be taken.
Poets even bury and marry folk,
the poems doing the heavy lifting.
Then they get to just be poetry,
if there's time.

Mon., Mar. 23

Bible lands and holy names
they tell us ancient tales,
of walking through the desert
on newly journeyed trails;
Looking for deep wells where
the dry can drink and live,
the holes are blocked with boulders
no access do they give.
Keeping out a wand'rer,
a raider or a knave,
it takes more than just one man
to move the stone and save --

I cannot roll the stone
cannot put behind me
all the weight and load
it tries to keep inside me
Jacob made it move,
opened up the way,
living water flowed
when Jesus rolled the stone, away.

Moses marked the Jordan
with a pile of stone,
one for every tribe which
in slavery did groan;
as they crossed the river,
they raised up where they knew
God's power had removed them
to where their lives were new --

I cannot roll the stone
cannot put behind me
all the weight and load
it tries to keep inside me
Jacob made it move,
opened up the way,
living water flowed
when Jesus rolled the stone, away.

Now I approach the well
myself am weak and weary
yet something holds me back,
a rock marked "I'm unworthy";
A barrier titanic,
a block to knock me down,
until i turn around and
that massive stone is gone --

I cannot roll the stone
cannot put behind me
all the weight and load
it tries to keep inside me
Jacob made it move,
opened up the way,
living water flowed
when Jesus rolled the stone, away.

Sun., Mar. 22

There's a thrill approaching the door,
inside, clothes a little more upscale,
at least a bit less frayed.
Those who preside are all in black,
there are programs at the doors,
Conversations are quiet throughout the hall
punctuated by sudden distant laughs;
then movement to the front directs
attention to the platform,
all eyes shift from comparing fabrics
and waistlines, to the proceedings
that drew us together here.
Is it a concert, or a church service?
There's a liturgical solemnity
to a chamber ensemble performance,
a vocal recital, a string quartet.
It feels like church:
indeed, more like church than most churches
as they gather anymore
(and many avoid the name church anyhow).
Is it what churches have lost,
what classical music has gained,
or what they are last to let go of?
But i love that moment,
where conversation is no longer required,
when the conductor's baton is raised,
when the violinist's foot taps once,
in the still small pregnant quiet
about to fill with sound
that has intonation, evocation,
if not explicit meaning --
a direction for thought
that is not directive, that opens
and leads
and nudges from behind.
Perhaps it's the lack of a sermon,
the absence of lecturing,
the deference to sound over words,
but my thoughts go places
and come together in forms
when at a classical music concert
that never happens anywhere else.
The brain is engaged, and active,
but released, and open, and freed --
with expectations.
The daydreaming distracted mind,
or the fantasizing, diverted thought,
they're not at home
in the atmosphere of structured sound.
It's imagination and thinking dancing,
like Fred and Ginger, but on a first date.
And the way of looking at the world,
not with a soundtrack,
but to a score, following an arrangement,
part of a larger symphony,
an expression of an absent composer,
lasts beyond the final encore,
echoing in my day and week and for some time,
but fading, fading
until i get to relax into a seat at a concert
once again, restoring and refreshing
that pattern, those sources.
When worship is like that,
sparking associations and linking ideas,
lasting well into the week,
it was a good service -- but i don't know it
until long long after.
At least not 'til Thursday.
Can a concert be judged a success the same way?
That may not be their intention,
but it is mine: for the time spent listening
to help me hear, and even to understand,
not just in that moment,
not just with that audience.
And sometimes you just wonder when it'll be over,
and check your watch. But not often,
not if I can help it,
and apparently I can.

Sat., Mar. 21

A raven's cry
is sharp, and loud.
He snaps an answer
to questions left unasked.
Above the sunrise,
still unfurled,
a goose or two honk
and in procession pass.
No people move
through houses wedged all around;
this hilltop
has inhabitants more vital
from millenia past
than these frail houses
will seem to last.
A rose burns to orange,
waiting on gold, and fire,
where eastern light is cast
asprawl the horizon,
filtering under the overhead clouds.
Mists are rough, and frail
where valleys fill with cars,
and trails of light.
More birds join in,
overruled by Raven
but heedless all the same.
Clinging tightly to the earth,
embracing the elevation,
holding out a reach from star to sun,
pole to pole,
latitude to latitude,
grasping Parnassus and Cherry Valley,
the Heart of Granville and
the encircling Welsh Hills.
This Alligator, this Caiman,
this Opossum, this Piasa,
this Underwater Panther
calls out to the Thunderbird,
the Great Serpent,
and an answer echoes off of the sun,
rolling across the figure
and binding past to present,
right here,
right now.
In the valley below,
a bell tolls.
Raven answers.

Fri., Mar. 20

Silent hope
silent night
silent dawn
silent light

Silent pain
silent hesitation
silent shame
silent destination

Silent hope
silent doubt
silent faith
a sudden, distant shout.

Thur., Mar. 19

Protestants don't have patron saints,
unless they do, and i have
an affection for Joseph,
least central of the Holy Family,
last of "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph."
Like the Holy Spirit in the creeds,
he's least commented upon,
last in precedence,
obscurely obvious,
necessarily vague,
absolutely dispensable.
Take him out of the story, though,
and the narrative can't proceed;
remove his non-instrumental choices
and the agency of the others
is disabled, more than impaired.
Joseph did his part,
took his place,
filled his role,
and vanished.
Holy Joseph, pray for us sinners,
that we might do the same.

This is not the place

There is a spot for passing by
a location that often tells me why
i worry and turn away.
What happened there is long ago
and all the aftermath i know
is tidied up without a fray.

Decisions made can take a flash
and well thought choices end up as trash -
which works is mystery;
You doubt yourself for long, long years
and wonder how your whelming fears
can leave your hopes all empty.

I walked away and many said
my choice was right, and led
to other outcomes fair.
Still do i wonder long, and ask
if i just left an undone task,
shackles for another to wear.

Wed., Mar. 18

How is it possible
that at the moment of release
seconds before impact, yards away
you can know so well
that the ball will strike,
the pins will shatter,
and not a single one
left standing.
It isn't at the first step,
the first swing,
or low in the roll,
but the release,
the last brush of fingers
off the holes, twisting gently,
at that instant,
the future is clear and sharp
and vivid,
but not as vivid as the
strike itself,
an intact shatter battering
around the end of the lane,
the slow seeking by the setter,
and a bright red X.
But you knew already,
a while ago.

Tues., Mar. 17

Sailing back to Ireland,
what were you thinking?
Wondering about wild men,
dreaming of dolmens, menhirs, barrows?
An escape took you to a confrontation
with the one you cannot escape,
a divine call from an enemy,
an adversary, one from whom you escaped,
who called you back,
and you went.
What call did you feel,
to convert, to confirm, to save;
were there to be monasteries,
cathedrals, churches with round towers,
castles with mythic stones,
an obsession with shamrocks?
No.
You saw people,
those you hadn't met,
whose plight you knew from below,
whose fears and bonds you knew from within.
You saw, sailing back across the Irish Sea,
a land ripe for harvest, full and rich and . . .
. . . yes, and green. Full of life,
life that should endure,
and does,
with power and passion and fierce intent
to cross oceans and boundaries and make
of three or more a oneness that will stand,
like an oak in a hillside grove,
like a Celtic cross where roads meet,
and become one.

Mon., Mar. 16

Pancake breakfasts
mark this spring and all my eras;
holding mom's hand,
walking under a giant moosehead
and past a picture of Mooseheart,
black and white from the air,
modern and ancient all at once.
Herding my brothers into a school,
Jaycees in yellow vests
stabbing sausage, handing out
pints of milk.
Helping at the counter,
wearing my scout uniform,
filling up syrup containers,
waiting for my family to show up.
Walking in the kitchen early,
mixing up the batter,
calling home to ask my wife
"how many pounds of sausage can we store?"
I'm easier now with pancakes on the grill,
now i don't have to watch or tend
the bubbles in the batter
quite so closely; i can talk,
and watch the passing crowd,
almost as closely as i did under Mooseheart,
holding my mother's hand,
wondering why so many people
suddenly all wanted pancakes,
and why they had tickets here,
not a cash register.

Tears

Crying more as I get older
is not such a bad deal:
it makes up for so many tears
unshed, over years past.
Tears held back for toughness' sake,
restrained for embarrassment's sake,
never started for maturity's sake.
Now, it can be at the smallest of spurs,
of sentiment, of satisfaction,
of dramatic occasion.
And I let it happen,
without . . .
well, with some hesitation.
But so much less than I once felt,
the anxiety that tears would be unwise.
A little indifference to opinon,
a healthier sense of proportion,
a great deal of love, and loss,
and much emotion.
So I cry more now,
and will continue.
But hand me a tissue,
and I'll still wave it off.
I'm still a guy, y'know.

Sun., Mar. 15

Some metaphors aren't
many truisms are
most verities aren't
while cliches really are.

I can't predict
or even project
the average event
or traumas prevent.

Where i almost impact
or at least mitigate
fate's buffeting smack
is to anticipate.

To judge in advance
can help, or can hinder
as it leads us to chance
stereotyping, to wear blinders.

Most assumptions are false
few exceptions are true
we see the miscues in others
but not me and you.

Sat., Mar. 14

How many steps to a true Irish dance?
The drumming, the pounding, a rapid fire clatter
with feet all ablur and dresses aflounce,
the world all a rhythmic, gunfire rattle.
It is more a made atmosphere
than a true evocation,
when St. Patrick Day's near
Irishness is mostly simulation.
Not mocking, a model, a mirage, a motif,
echoes of Ireland idealized in green;
even if most of our Celtic belief
is rooted in landscape that we've never seen.
What we see is the green beer and green-tinted beef,
the young girls, dancing briskly their role.
We lose track of the steps, but it's a pattern in relief,
tracing outlines of Eire not quite missing the whole.

Fri., Mar. 13

There's two months in a row
with Friday the Thirteenth.
That can only happen in February and March, right?
That's what he asks me, and of course,
I say "That's right."
So it doesn't happen very often?
His awareness of dates and numbers
pushes out before my eyes,
expanding to years and decades,
and more.
Good luck, bad luck, a lifespan, beyond.
He asks about the solstice and moon,
then about plaintiffs and defendants.
The subject has changed, but it hasn't,
because it's about that horizon
of known and unknown, and standing on that edge.
Then he asks "So this is kind of a lucky day, right?"
That's right. That's right.

Thur., Mar. 12

I've looked at lawnmowers for three days now.
Red and green and grey-blue, shiny metal,
matte black, with bags and without.
I'm looking for one that lasts,
the last one made it 15 years.
There's the big box stores
that cannot offer service
and pricier local stores
where they can, & will.
I haven't looked at
sheep or goats, but
everything else.
Really, all I
want is to
find one
that'll
cut my
lawn.

Screen Door Slams

This won't last,
this early heat,
this balmy evening.
These are precious days,
these are precious for being rare,
these will not last.
While they're here,
while we can,
while away a slow end of day.
Screen porches air out homes,
screen windows open,
screen door slams.
Some sounds speak of seasons,
some phrases take you home,
some days last forever.
This is one, like all those before.

A Small Addition Multiplies

Long evenings, borrowed from morning
(thank you, FDR),
so the kids are blowing bubbles in the drive.
They love the simple energy,
to blow, to pop,
their glistening moment to be alive.
My mix is simple, water, soap;
some drops of glycerin.
It seems a magic potion to the children watching on.
Bathtub bubbles all they know,
and sometimes bubblegum,
but these take flight and seem to float 'til dawn.
Yeast in pizza dough, food drive brown bags,
glycerin in the mix,
are all small ways the boy now learns;
that the tiniest ingredient
transforms the whole
just as atoms' action are why the bright sun burns.

Tues., Mar. 10

Catch fire, and light
a path through the branch,
the bough that will not break.
Buds burst, perhaps too soon,
sap flows while dandelion grows,
and bulbs start to boom.
Spears of green dig up
while freshly filed spades
delve down, and turn,
lifting soil in earnest toil,
seeds sprout out of gloom
seeking warmth
as much as light.
Days are longer,
the sun feels stronger,
Life will conquer,
and love will linger,
where growth is in sight
and fruitfulness is might.

Monday, Mar. 9

Under a palm tree, standing strong,
Deborah judged and led the nation.
Choosing, refusing, inciting,
leading, encouraging, fighting,
the wife of "Torches"
and namesake of bees
made a stinging, fiery mark
across the stolid pages of scripture.

I see her as older, wiser, taller,
strong and vocal, stern and loving.
Shifting from elders, not yet
calling kings, a judge is a prophet,
a voice into the wilderness
out of the settled hearth
or cultivated field.
From the wilderness comes threat,
dangers from Egypt,
raiders on the wing,
storm clouds from the west.

Standing against the untamed,
the opposition, the Destroyer,
Deborah sat and spoke,
discerning and learning,
teaching and preaching.

Barack would not lead without her,
the blessed would not set forth
without her blessing.
Deborah was a judge in Israel,
a poet in ancient times,
the fifth chapter in the seventh book,
when I turn to the Bible and read,
and am judged.

Sunday, Mar. 8

Peeling back, putting down,
piling up, pushing around.
Yard work isn't really hard work,
even if it's the toughest that we do.

Tearing apart, tacking under,
tying across, tripping over.
Spring calls for so much effort
we barely make it through.

Carrying away, cooking for,
cashing in, calling forth.
Work for any season, even Spring,
but cleaning is the work that's true.

Switchbacks, Mar. 6

First daffodil, first forsythia
(i'm far from home, south of the familiar)
with wasps and buds all coming out
to see the sun.

Break time leads some of us to the lake,
and a stroll, and to the chapel.
Nearby, a labyrinth, the rings and folds
turn and turn again, stepping closer
to the center, then further away,
irregular but constant, a steady
turning, turning, closer, farther,
then taking us within.

I step outside the charmed circle,
and head back to the bridge, still
time enough to explore upstream.
A sign, like one behind the chapel,
"Luke Trail;" four hills
(they call them mountains here)
around the camp's lake, the others
necessarily Matthew, Mark, John.

Leaving the main road, the beaten path,
Luke's way is still clear enough,
blazed with blue. It meanders
at first, but starts to weave
as the way grows steep and sharp,
exposed rock getting more and more common,
trees a bit sparser, trailbed shallower.

Back, and forth, with
short staggering straight stretches,
making you feel the value of switchbacks,
aside from the environmental, erosional
reason to keep to the indirect path.
A final push, a gasping set of pauses, and then
the top.
A cairn of stones, a pause to set your own,
and after air, a calmer sense of looking
for the view, the glance back below.

But the top is angled back; to get
closer to the precipice above the lake
you go down, slipping, rollfootedly down,
an imperfect view finally, and a long way up
to go back the way you came.
I look down longingly, looking back up wearily.

There's a blue blaze, though, far to your left.
The long swing across the slope,
crawling back away from the lake,
into the valley, then a switchback, you head
straight, briskly towards the now ringing dinner bell.
It rounds again, and back, away;
this will not do, and you see downslope
the next coil, and think "Short cut"?
That will not do, either, and you walk on.
The wildflowers hedge you onto the trodden way,
their tiny vulnerability no match for
size 14 shoes tromping along.
Keep to the path.

C.S. Lewis wrote of hiking in the Alps,
late in an afternoon, looking down and seeing,
almost able to drop a rock on the chalet
where they would sleep, just hundreds of feet
away. Not distant? It would be another five miles
of brisk hiking, and after dark before they
found their way to hearth and temporary home.
You think you are close, and you are,
but there is still a long way to go,
that cannot be avoided and might be enjoyed.
This makes sense to me now.

As does the labyrinth, which i passed again
on the final bight, and down and out,
to the valley floor at the hill's,
mountain's foot,
behind the stone chapel, again past the
landscaped, level labyrinth,
closing a circle.
You can always just walk across it,
and know what it is to stand in the centerplace,
but you will not feel it
(not the same way)
and it is not wise to do so.

Nor is it kind. Stay on the path,
frustrating though the switchbacks may be;
it is for the health of the land,
for those who follow in your footsteps,
for your aging ankles,
for the health of your soul.
Follow the path, all the way
to the center.
The outlined tradition, the blue blazes,
the ringing of the dinner bell,
will lead you to where you need to be.

When I return, not really late, having
completed the circuit of the "Luke Trail,"
someone asks, "Did you see the daffodils?"
Yes, I saw.

Fri., Mar. 6

Ripping up through clouds, sinking back below them
they look loose and disjointed from the ground
and we think of them as airy nothing -

an airplane knows better; the pilot,
the passengers, the airframe itself,
all groaning, some louder than others.

A thin layer of water vapor and mist
filled with picturesque whirls
is actually a zone of turbulence and change

where those passing through run a gaunlet
of slaps and blows and hammered harsh impacts
that don't quite stop your progress, but might.

"Be kind, for everyone is fighting a great battle."
An old saw, an aphorism well known,
little practiced. In a plane, tossed about, tilting,

when you look around at faces who might
be boxed and captioned next to yours in tomorrow's paper,
it becomes quite real, you can see and feel its truth.

Thur., Mar. 5

What to pack?
What to wear?
Time to prep,
time for prayer;
I don't know
and I don't care
about the weather
way down there,
the climate, tho',
I hope is fair.

Wed., Mar. 4

When Alexander Campbell died today
in 1866
his family gathered all around
though there was nothing they could fix.

No signs and wonders marked the day
no return of native power.
The last few years of slow decline
led to this final hour.

They sang for him the hymns he loved
(they'd been doing that for long)
when in one moment realized
the man on the bed was gone.

Yet every year, for ever since
fresh flowers in God's Acre laid
mark today, with songs and prayers,
and thankful speeches made.

* * *

Tues., Mar. 3

"Wowwwww...." he said,
my son brought out from house and warmth
to stand with his dad in the frosty driveway.

He looked with me at Venus to the west,
a reaching hand of starlight groping, a clump of rays reaching
through a veil of light, thin cloud dangling down.

Then straight up, directly overhead
the Moon, at half, waxing, not round
but at a dramatic remove, perfectly traced --

A ring around the moon,
soild, yet ghostly, clear, but feeling
as if we could just exhale and make it go.

"I've never seen that before,"
he said, and the ultimate "That's cool, Dad."
Then "Can we go in now?" Yes, we can.

Tues., March 3

Between the fellowship hall and stage
in the basement of the church
where i grew up
was a curtain.

Maroon,
heavy cloth,
thick with rippled
folds that drew back on either side.

We would play during meetings
and programs, dashing
inside and outside,
light to dark.

When i went
to Jerusalem,
and visited a church,
the Cathedral of St. James,

Lent had just begun, and custom
was that a curtain was drawn
across the iconostasis.
It was the same one.

Only added, a dove
embroidered in the center,
and stark against the solid background
were two candlesticks, and an open Bible.

My friends were sorry, sad that we had come
when we could not see the regular glory
of golden icons and ancient carving;
but I knew what stood behind.

Monday, Mar. 2

The debris of our lives
she tries to keep in order
with bins and boxes and baskets.

Each week our laundry and groceries
ebb and flow through these rooms
moving them about is our work.

Some run out, others dwindle,
gaps on shelves, in the fridge
that must be refilled, replenished

Even as the school papers, paid bills,
official notices, news clippings,
all pile up just a bit higher.

She works to keep a space for us,
by throwing out what isn't ours.

Sunday, March 1

Trying not to think about birds,
trying to focus upon my words;
this St. David's Day below Welsh Hills
along the paths where Raccoon Creek spills;

I still am drawn to flying things
whose early morning action sings
of southern lands not long behind,
from whence they left this plot to find.