Month: January 2014

LAMENT

Where and when did it begin,

This call to me of the wild?

Was it the chatter of tanagers

Flitting in Amesbury pines

Waking a six-year-old child,

Or was it the dip and dip

Of my parents’ canoe paddles

In the Powow River north

Of camp on Tuxbury Pond,

Or when I looked up at trees

And hooked my hand on the smooth

Bark of birch and aspen

As I struggled up Mt. Chocorua?

Later I came to mourn

The hurricane’s blast, the pines

Strewn like tangled match sticks,

The scarlet tanagers gone.

Today as an octogenarian

It drives me wild to see

Our maples migrating to Canada,

Our Great Bay rank with algy.

WISH YOU WERE HERE

I’ve gotten used to

The empty chair,

The unwrinkled pillow,

And one place at the table

Without you.

But how can I watch

The moon tangled in black branches,

The sun rise over Carter Notch,

Or the first flakes of new snowfall

Without you?

RIVERWOODS, JANUARY 2014

THE ENDLESS QUEST

(Thoughts on hearing Marcelo Gleiser, author of “Life in an Imperfect Universe”)

Let us cease our fruitless search

For a unified theory of the universe.

The force that drives the stars away

Drives our brief forms of energy

To question, search, adapt, evolve:

The mystery is not meant to be resolved.

Perfection is a false and fatal lure:

The wily fox outlived the dinosaur.

The journey is not meant to have an end.

There’s no one answer out there to be found.

Natural selection steadily proceeds.

Only that goes onward which succeeds.

FIREWORKS

(On being asked what is the process of writing a poem)

You’ve seen the Grand Finale

Start with a single spark

After which the sky goes dark.

The pause feels interminable.

And then another twinkle,

Faint but unmistakable.

The wait becomes more bearable:

The pattern is predictable.

A snapping, crackling crescendo

Of stuttering gunfire sends

Out strands of blinding light,

Illuminates the looming night.

Likewise can a poem be born:

One spark ignites the dawn.

(January 4, 2014)

SNOW DAY

We welcome snow:

Flakes falling slow,

Concealing our tracks,

Covering our backs.

No place to go,

No rows to hoe,

The world’s gone white.

We’re sitting tight.

We hope it snows

All day, all night.

(January 2, 2014)

EPIPHANY

Veiled by thickly falling snow,

Winter robins come and go.

From my window I can see

Them flocking in the tall pear tree.

Startled by the passing plow,

Scattering in a frantic cloud,

Flitting, fluttering, never still,

They seldom pause to eat their fill.

Off the roof a sudden gust

Convinces them they’ve had enough.

I wish them luck, I wish, “God Speed!”

I hope they find sustaining seed.

I’m glad I’ve had this chance to know

Winter robins in the snow.

(January 2, 2014)

NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION

I have to learn to sleep alone.

With fleece sheets to keep me warm,

Burrowing into my memory foam ,

I do my best to sleep alone.

Curled around his broader form

I felt his heart beat like my own.

Now I must learn to sleep alone.

For all the lonely nights to come

We must be two: I must be one.

I have to learn to sleep alone.

(January 1, 2014)