Jenny’s Wind
Jenny would love this gusty wind
were she with me here to see it playing
in these tall oak and birch she knows so thoroughly.
Yes, Jenny
would love this gutty wind which sneaks
beneath the leaves, and rustles them
until they waken. The breeze
pretends it’s morning still
pretends it doesn’t know about the darkness
the silence
which has swept across the world
since yesterday.
The wind is trying harder now.
Relentlessly it tries
to sweep the leaves and branches
into some sort of playful mood
some whim
to rouse them from the death-like mourning
of their silence.
Now and then
it pauses haltingly a moment. Then
rampages on
as if to chase away a darkness
as if to quell
the soundless whelming of her death
before it blackens out September.
Lake
the slim dark flower
i saw this morning
while walking beside
a lake i’d seen
for only an hour
pressed without warning
down deep inside
and made me dream
of her lips’ sweet power
Love Story
Carl & I spent many Mays
roaming the hills on sunny days
fighting pirates, routing thieves
building castles, climbing trees
right though to the breezy fall
when leaves became our rampart wall.
Mid-summer of our sixteenth year
something changed, another sex appeared:
a dirt brunette, and a blonde who tracks
Carl up the hill and back.
Between the two he’ll get to choose,
lucky Carl — he cannot lose.
His eyes are good, he will not miss
her soft blonde hair, the way it twists
and curves like Nature made it do,
and gleams with love in the afternoon.
Then her face he won’t forget –
the chin so soft, yet firmly set
beneath her light blue eyes (those sing
like summer raindrops in the wind).
But I get the girl he leaves behind,
God, I hope that he is blind
and does not love the one that’s blonde:
she’s the girl my dreams are on.
Summer Love
Now winter’s come
I like to hum
and sometimes sing a tune
To bring to me
the memories
of times we had last June
When I gave you
some summer love
beneath the night’s white moon
Recall we were
beside the shore –
a woman, and a man
Who held her firmly
next to him
on blankets made of sand
Your eyes on mine
were soft and kind
as you pressed against my hips
And the stars above
bright with love
as we tasted with our lips
The waves rolled in
and in the din
we danced a while
Afterwards
we had no words
but silence and a smile
As eye to eye
beneath the sky
we shed our clothes and hugged
Our bodies stark
in the dark
nakedly we loved
The morning smiled
on clothing piled
aside our makeshift bed
And was no talk –
I’ve often thought
of things I might have said
While rapt amazed
I gazed
at the woman I should wed
But now like summer
you are gone –
my winter lingers on
And midnight brings
a pain to things
my heart has felt too long
Moth
A small brown moth
that flew at me
from a place unknown
to make me start
or at least ask why –
Bid me love
and plant my seed
until I’ve shown
from out my heart –
it was a butterfly.
Non-Metaphoric
When by windstorm the knowledge-theories fall
and men see how blocks have called them on
and tricked them into building mental walls
of symbolic brick, idea-ic mortar, the overall
constructed game of mind that has deprived
men of non-metaphoric wind outside –
then, and not till then, men will come alive.
Walk in Rain
I like to walk out in the early rain
trudge by the houses hibernating snug
track the road-edge out to where the city ends.
Like to walk far past the traffic all alone
and hear the patter of the rainfall on my coat
taste the morning droplets on my tongue.
Like to see the rainwater play among the leaves
drip from branches onto branches onto ground
trickle through the dead leaves of the floor.
Like to run my hand along the damp oak-bark
dip my bare feet in the dirt. I like to see
raindrops oozing brook-like between my toes.
Like to walk out in the early rain.
Night Sprinkle
The trees, set back, turn dark and black
against the evening sky
and cross the way, at edge of day,
the sun calls out “good-bye”.
Now breezes form to keep us warm
throughout the coming night
and bring (in shrouds) well-hidden clouds
that enter from the right.
While one by one the night stars come
to sprinkle down their light.
They’re followed soon — yes, by the moon –
she guards us close above,
cloaks us in her moonlight grin,
and soaks us
wet with love.
Changes
Feel the changing changing seasons
Changing days changing minutes
Taking sharing our scattered feelings
From the moment to the moment
Feel the pushing pulsing wind
Blowing through the turning morning
Bringing light and bringing shade
To feed our hearts on changing change
Now feel the newborn blushing moments
Each arising from the changes
Touch the feelings in our hearts
Grasp the changing love that comes
Between the coming and the going
Know the blowings of the moment
Fit the changes with the minutes
Share the minutes as they change
The Lesson
With every movement and every eager word
she made me feel how wrong it was
not to love this simple world.
Not to feel that when the trees were swaying,
I was swaying too,
that when the blackbird flocks were soaring
between the clouds,
I was soaring too.
Druthers
Not the prettiest smile
or the one that lasts the longest
or the one that’s always there.
Not the prettiest face
or the one that’s painted best
or necessarily the longest hair.
Not the beauty queen
(who’s really just pretend)
nor the most recent personality
trotting at the trend.
And not the body most revealed
or the willingest to yield.
But the unordinary girl
who likes the simple love
that’s made of simple real.
Who feels before she knows
and finds music in the sound
of swishing grass
or beauty in the way
an apple grows.
She
She touched me.
Her skin, tanned by moonlight.
Clean like a morning lake,
soft like a flowered hillside.
She kissed me.
Her face, textured by breezes.
Happy like a morning bird,
thoughtful like falling leaves.
She loved me.
Her eyes, lit by yellow sunlight.
Colored like an afternoon,
mellowed like an evening sun.
Leaving
Long before the winter came
the branches gave the leaves.
The summer gave the season rain,
autumn the season breeze.
November gave the wet days
that dripped from grey-black skies.
December gave the leaf-bare boughs
and the wind that faintly died,
then the dark and puffy clouds
that matched the sky for size.
The clouds gave the snow
that blanketed the ground.
The leaving of the birds gave
the winter’s silent sound.
Once
Once I wrote a poem
that sounded like the world
I want to live.
Once I felt the wind
between the clouds careening
and knew I was at home.
Once I had a moment
beneath the autumn/apple trees
when I knew creation was a circus
and God and I were brothers.
Once I sipped my life
as it bubbled over.
Now I only know the lingering taste.
At the River
From the mud with curiosity i saw
everyone in eagerness was racing
downstream to where the water
spawned into a river. There they thrashed
together in the current; then climbed
the waiting barges. Soon the flow
swept them to the delta
poured them to the sea.
i followed the brook upstream
until i found a mountain lake
guarded by some clouds.
it was rather lonely but
i liked it.
The Tinkling Sound
When I first stepped outside today
before afternoon had hardly begun
I heard a faint and tinkling sound
so strangely nearby I could not tell
from which direction it had come.
It wasn’t music I’d heard before.
It puzzled me. I stopped and sighed
A cricket’s whine? A coming shower?
Or was it bees buzzing among the flowers?
No, just the morning crying as it died.
The Tent
Pretend the stars are gone, the moon has froze away;
pretend night’s stiffened digits are rubbing on the flap;
hear the canvas bleating out its chilly, muted pleas
to our restless, cold-numbed bodies. Bodies awake/asleep
that dream of warming autumn hours in a cabin
before the crinkling, yellow fingers of the fire –
dream of our hugging ever warmer on the blanket
till the cabin dreamly darkens, and we tire.
Or dream half-sleeping of a lovers’ summer night
pillowed together on a drifting, sandy beach;
and feel the beating, beating, beating of each other’s heart –
then wake eternal to wonder where the coldness went.
Oh to be lovers in the warm, warm sand
while wrapped thick in blankets in a January tent!
Cards
Seems life is like a diamond
Or club or spade or heart
And whoever the card-game goddess is
She’s dealt me out to a losing start.
In diamonds I’m money-poor
Hearts I haven’t won yet
Spades and clubs got me all confused;
Seems my whole life’s on the bet.
I’ve heard it said that life’s
Just like a game of chess.
For in chess you get in a jam
It’s your fault you’re in the mess;
In chess you start off equal
And the pieces always move the same
And you don’t ever have to cut the deck.
Damn, life and cards are a different game.
But sometimes your luck can change
The card-goddess smile on you;
You draw a joker
Accidentally shoot the moon
The goddess winks
Then you know you’re gonna win.
Castles
Why do we stand
on this side of the fence
when we could have had a choice?
Why do we only walk
one side of the road
and never think about its meaning?
Building castles in the sand
is for children only.
And I don’t know why
Feelings
You are the morning songbird
that wakens me. The gawky persistent wind
that shares my morning walk along the hillside.
You are the shrill,
piercing laughter of the waves
jumping on the beach. The light blue lake
napping in the sun. The tired,
perspiring afternoon. The shady oak tree by the door.
You are the evening clouds of white
and greyish white and black; and the restless, northbound flocks
charting through the colors.
You are the hues
that hug the setting sun and sing
of tomorrow’s promises: and dream.
You are the grey,
black shadows that leap across the sea.
The dark. The moonlight of my life. The tender,
faint night I feel but have not met.
You are the girl who brings the moon
to me. The balanced
and exotic heart I do, yet do not know. The sister
to the spirit eluding me,
the daughter
to the beauty I can feel.
You are
the whispered smile and the teasing grin.
The delighted finger pointing toward the dawn.
The long night’s last sleepy yawn. The yellowed,
opening sky
that lets the morning in!
