Friday, December 13, 2013

August




August



Father and mother unlock your doors 
On nights of summer. Bare
Feet gliding through hushed sighs. They love
Waiting for tomatoes crimson to climb and Magnolias grow
Larger than whales, white on the terrace
Spraying delicious scents around the homes 
Of hands, stirring quiet to lift quilts and escape 
Out the window and into the night.

In the damp heat, smallness is grand
Crashing  waves that wear the years away,
And I am bathing with the midnight birds
Black feathers wet and they sing
"The moon is a lamp
The stars are chandeliers
And you my dear are a moth
Trapped in an earthly body
Jailed by the summer night."

An Exerpt







In the unnamed begging hours,
In the remote blue, when the darkness of night has burned down
I loll in the barren belly of half sleep, revisiting our history. I can see you
Beneath the snow and streetlamp in that coat
That made me think you announced the weather. Winter had thrust forward
His granite knuckles, but we had swung wide, dodging the blow.
In his own way , he apologized for his bitterness, linking 
Each of your eyelashes in a string of pale white kaleidoscopes.

In my imaginings we are always more beautiful,
And the walkways where we stood are part
Of a city worthwhile. A metropolis considered 
From airplane windows, placed in good light, each street
Flawless, neighborhoods distinct,
Tiny squares 
Our very avenue admired upon landing.
My body remains together, though you have been subtracted.

You lifted off.

The city is removing 
A building from the ground near my new home. In these moments
Before the beginning, when the dog is breathing deep
Beside me, I listen
To the workers fire their steel voices through winter smoke.
Schoolboys, with wives for mothers
They Hold rounded thermoses close. One has a funny look, an unfocused sort of grin.
You would have pointed him out, yet only as one would notice
A strip of gold hiding in the crease of a grey morning.




Paper Kites



Paper Kites


The early evening always realizes 
My lack of resistance. It whispers to shadows,
Stirring them toward quiet rebellion. They grow
Taller than their masters, taller than me.
I move slowly through the house,
Drifting on the light of an over ripe peach,
It drips down the windows,
staining my table and papers , passing behind the eyes
Of the dog, changing him for a moment
Into a ghost. I share each room
With silence and the smell of hydrangeas. They love 
this light too. Outside my window they stand guard
Against the dust on the roadway. 

In the early evening there is also the Juniper
on the distant hillside
Where children lay
Their bodies flat against the earth, arms and legs
Stretched out, reaching 
and then rolling down, laughing and calling out
To one another. If I were with them I would speak
More like my mother and refer to jackets as parkas,
Feeling the importance that they zip them up, 
As not to catch cold. But it is summer
And I am not my mother, and nor was she hers. 

Its the modesty of growing old
That makes us realize we are all part
Of the same thing, soft and ripened,
Descending behind the trees with little struggle. 


Finding Leaves

         "Naked but safe, 2010"




Finding Leaves


I have found your mad ravings beautiful. The frantic
Running towards nothing and naming it
Love. The first leaf fell and I wish I could apologize
For its failure to hold on as the days grew cooler.
There was a time when I could think of little else, just the simple
Rebukes of lost letters and moments that time loosened. 
These have brought autumn quickly. 

A blackbird fell on the street today. I did not wake to see it, but I knew it 
was there. A time piece, an ancient bleeding, a solid ring of missing pieces.
I threw it a flower and slipped on my coat. 
We walk to recognize the movement, we kiss to recognize living. The cling
Of bodies or hands. 

I would like to join a cloudy day in winter, moving
Ever so slowly in the weathers uncertainty, unnoticed
In my drifting suit of smoke. I would hold the bird
Dressed in black, never letting her plummet. It is in the darkness of day that I remember
You, and I long to be a simple object
In your home, that I may always be near. 

In the lightness of evening I am just myself. Not alone,
But on the metro with a sandwich and you, headed 
Out to watch the clouds in a park on the industrial side of town.
A funny thing, there in in the center of factories, a patch of grass
Guarded by iron
Machines, a slope and a bench. It is just like the one we found
So many years ago. A space
Enough for two bodies. 

You would be a silly old man, and I a silly old woman. 
We never did anything spectacular, I never changed
The world like I said I would, but in the squeeze of your hand id remember
That it is rare for one to notice the movement 
Of clouds.