Month: November 2013

REFLECTIONS ON THE TOWN DUMP

This pyramid of metal arms and legs

Recalls a stack of antlers

In Jackson Hole, Wyoming:

That shock of recognition sparked

By castoff appendages,

That disturbance of tourists

Decanted into catacombs

Where skulls and bones

Have clattered into silence,

Duckpins struck by bowling balls.

This tangle of lawn chairs

Is one more moraine dropped

By glaciers of purchase power

Onto overstuffed landfills.

Beyond is a small mountain

Of tires, a ridge of refrigerators,

Stoves, washers and dryers.

Workers sort bottles by colors

And stuff trailer trucks full

Of papers.  Oils and toxic

Chemicals are collected

For hopefully safe disposal,

Leaving plastics to be buried

By bulldozers for future

Archaeologists to ponder.

DEER CROSSING THE ICE

Wood nymphs frisking on the frozen lake,

I see them as I ski around the bend.

They could be leading Pan a merry chase,

Curvetting to a fanfare of March wind.

I yearn to join them on the silver stage

With sunlit birch and cedar scenery,

Lift and bend in an ecstacy of grace,

Dance to the pulsing universal heartbeat.

As David danced at the altar of the Lord,

As wavelets dance on the bosom of the land,

Jete on the wind, the bold leap forward,

Bow and retreat as birches learn to bend.

Hooves and tails melt on a wooded isle.

I blink to clear the water from my eyes.

AERIES

(For Jim and Loraine)

Some people live in glass houses

And watch the arabesques of waves

Along the shore while making harmonies

Of baroque bassoon, flute and harpsichord,

Or talk of politics and architects while spider

Webs of city lights outshine the stars.

Having climbed peaks and photographed

The ancient sites of arts and wars,

They perch their homes on canyon walls

Softened by swirling mists that flow around

Pines, cedars and jagged vertebrae

That sharpen mountain spines.  These happy

Few have made their lives a work of art

To share with friends and students.  They

Like Hawaiian dancers hold the sun,

Moon, rain, stars and wind in their hands.

 

 

ANNIVERSARY GREETINGS TO OLD FRIENDS

As young marrieds we shared a tent,

Pine-needle scented, beside Lake Erie.

After supper we took long walks.

Moonlight bleached the green out of the grass.

 

Between New England and the Mid West

Letters wove a cat’s cradle of news

Across the miles, harpoons trailing explosives.

We transmitted the years of our lives.

 

We have pedaled leaf-dappled bike paths

Into Van Gogh”s light-blasted landscapes,

Reddened our mouths with Antwerp raspberries

And spiraled on soprano notes around St. Paul’s.

 

Watching children and parents disappear

Beyond opposite bends of the river,

We raft the whitewater, exhilarated,

Savoring the swiftness, the infinite variety.

 

THERAPY

The pain is IT.  Her gambit

Is to hide as in childhood games.

She fills her pack with gear

And takes to hills where mountain

Ashes drop their scarlet tears

On the trail.   She pulls herself

By friendly birchbark handholds

Up over barrier ledges.  

She sucks in air until

The fist within her diaphragm

Unclenches, leaving her

Seared and hollow as a

Redwood drilled by lightning.

The final sprint to the height

Of land is an epiphany.