Ragged Time

for Eve Shelnutt

We filled our days
with church, she
swathed babies and

I swept the Narthex,
on Sundays she sang
alto, I was acolyte,

there were matins
and vespers, missions
to migrant camps,

we filled our souls
with piety and truth,
devout offerings --

these were not
acts of faith but
acts of belief.

Summer days I
walked her home
past the swamp and

heaps of smoldering
mattresses and
tires curling pillars

of smoke, rotting
cabbages and
magazines, we

walked the valley
of shadow wasps
and dragonflies

as ashes rained
down on us and
the cattails--we

we were too young
for the body's
blessing to serve,

forsaken as all
must be before
suffering holiness.

More of Something

I woke up to the sound of nothing, really, and that's the problem.

I can't hear myself, or nothing else, for that matter, but there were no dream ghosts, no Debussy, no dark Mahler, no existential pulse.

[Now... I need to start thinking.... Who is this character? What is the story he propels? I have the beginning of a mystery, a conflict.... Where does it want to go? What does he need to do? What is his story? Where will it go?]

Beginning of Something

Here it is 18 degrees. It snowed all day and night.
So this morning, when I awoke, it was still dark. The world glowed with a radiance that only a new snow can give. A crystalline luminescence, a dream.
I did not sleep, but listened to the snow falling, and all the emptiness. Ashes falling to earth and landing with a hiss. I could feel them on my naked flesh, star ashes, cold and searing, even under my comforter I could not get warm. I shivered and sweat and worried in the glittering light.


Night sweats.


So here I am, sitting here, looking out the window, drinking coffee, and this is what I know.
It is 18 degrees.
It snowed last night, all day yeserday.
The cedars are bent and sagging.
Everything has shrunk.
The powerlines have drooped, the birch tree snapped.
The sun is pouring in, blinding me.
I am staring out at all of this brightness, this resplendence, and I can't bear my own breath, can't bear that gust of snow sworling just outside the window pane, that squirrel gnawing at the plastic lawn chair. I cannot feel my cold feet.
I have missed three weeks of work. I yanked the phone cord from the wall. The sink is stacked with pans of Beefaroni.
I shivered all night.
Why didn't I get another blanket?
Why didn't I sleep beside the radiator?
I could not move.


These are the facts. The cold hard facts.
I am so tired of the facts.

Summer Solstice 2007

This solstice is absurd!
The day stretches beyond
our minds... catbirds and
cardinals, ecstatic or
confused, keep singing as
new patches of time erupt
in jubilance, the sky
never quite darkens, you
can hear children squabbling
about vegetables, freight
cars groaning from the valley,
church bells at all hours,
insect clicks and buzzings,
ridiculous laughter,
bootylicious howls and jests,
bawdy moans and cries,
green maple swellings, ripe-
bellied gibes and the mocking
bawlings of crows swaying
in the sun-splashed
tree tops. Who is that
lusty comic swinging
naked atop the dawn?

for Bob Riegert

He is The Hanging Judge,
The Great Abnegater,

The God-Who-Always-Says-No

There's never been a case
He didn't deny or reject

There is no pleasing Him

no way to earn His love,
no escape from His wrath

there is no coup, no revolt

no rebellion, no way to
overthrow this Dark Lord.



The only way to survive
this life is to install

your own appellate judge

someone who can speak to
the jury, plead your case, some

Great Adjudicator,

Someone who will take your
side, tell your story, trust

you at your word, take you

on faith alone. Tell me,
who else in your life

will do that for you?

Who else will listen to you,
embrace your soul, and love

only you?

Beach Party Dalliance

On the drive to the beach, the caravan
stops at a roadside stand for strawberries--

we feed them to each other through the windows
like baby birds in a nest gulping for more!

The berries are incredibly sweet and ripe,
they burn the lips and tongue like honeyed nectar,

when we reach the beach and climb the sand
our bodies are no longer ours, but the young

lovers we were forty years ago, the quick
and confused, the swift moving and randy-fleshed,

we laze across the warm scalloped sand,
casual as teenagers aching for love

and yet cautious as parents, mindful to
build a fire but daring to swim trembling

in icy water. We are a band of exiles,
gypsies, a woman in a sari and her

two Nigerian children, another woman
with silver rings on her fingers and a tie-dye

dress that flutters in the wind lke a peacock's tail,
she tells everyone at the campfire that "it's

destiny that we meet", her chestnut eyes
staring wide, waiting for someone to fill them.

Both women are hauntingly beautiful
on the shore, they are looking for men to

make them whole, they have known men who are cruel,
both are looking for women who will understand,

who will bear witness to the truth of their lives,
but they seem haunted, unreal, unsure of what

the evening will bring next after the hotdogs
charred on sticks and the bags of potatos chips

and crispy asian slaw. The men scatter
across the sand bare-chested in the cool wind,

all sunburnt and squint-eyed, playing frisbee
while the kids dive across the sand desperately

trying to catch up. The sun slowly sinks
over the lake, slowly succumbing to

layers of lavender and peach and plum.
The last of the sailboats sag in along the

hollyhocks and roses and soon the faintest
stars and the crescent moon rises. We all

circle around the campire drinking cabernet
and asti, the glowing orange embers and bury

our flesh in the sand, for the air is now
cold, and without partners, the loneliness

is hard...were we younger and licking these
smores off our fingers we'd be licking each

other's fingers, hugging each other, and
disappearing into the hollows of

the dunes. As it is we must pleasure ourselves
with a glimpse of skin, the memory of

a voice, the gooseflesh fraised from an ardent
glance of her leg kicking up from the sand,

his chest tightening as he ran, how her hair
glistened in the sun when she left the water,

how his hand felt when he offered to help
her rise from the driftwood. Then, after midnight,

how we all blunder through the cold,
happy for a hooded sweatshirt and a

slice of cherry pie, the crust spinkled with sugar,
to sit out on the grass of the motel lawn

and count the stars glittering over the deep sky.
This is the loneliness of our lives, the

unbearably sweet and haunting aloneness
that we carry. Another day's longing,

another day of longing!

Solstice 2007

I missed it this
year, totally
whiffed, thought it was
today and then
looked at the date.
How can you miss
the shortest day of
the year? It does
not matter, the
world was shrouded
in fog, so there
was no way to
trace the long shadows
or the thin sun.
In truth I spent
the day sleeping
and writing a poem
about the longest
day of the year,
an irony, if
you will, perhaps
like the poem itself,
I was writing
about the death of
the Big Au Suble
River when it
turns out its more
of a sandy creek,
I was recalling
the end of love
when I remembered
it was really
the rebirth of
desire.

At the Mouth of the Big Au Sauble River

This is no great river by any stretch!
No, it dies a slow and easy death
in the sandy shoals of Lake Michigan.

You can wade across the river mouth
in fifteen, maybe twenty steps, the water
is clear and the bottom smooth scalloped sand,

it feels as luscious as an oyster or
the pink skin of a conch, sacred in its
shallows, then heaved up unceremonious

on a sandbar as it pushes deeper
into our souls. A lone fisherman casts
into the shadows, for what?, good luck?,

there's no fish lurking here, only nervous
gulls murmuring at the water's edge
and waterlogged driftwood, and as the sun

sets in its honeyed lavenders and mango
pomegranates and sweet cherries, sure enough
here come the beachcombers in their sombreros

and serapes and pedal pushers,
laughing, nuzzling, kissing and holding hands.
The water is warm and indifferent, pagan,

a quiet rapture. This is, after all,
the ordinary, our love dying off.
We came here not to renew but to be

reborn.

TUESDAY

Trapped behind my
window panes I

watched the city
slump into winter,

all morning the sky
darkened and the

sullen river stared
back, anxious,

an old wound.
Finally, we could

no longer stand it!
The snow fell in

wet gobs! Big globs!
Fist-sized ashes

filled the air, a
miracle! Great

clumps of star-stuff!
Globs of nuclear wonder!

Incredible chunks
of phenomena!

it was the world
transformed, the sky,

the river, the city
and the lovely

snow, I felt
I loved all this

lovely dying,
this lovely

praying, the end
of the world.

PINK: Walking For the Cure

thinking of Ellen Vincent


1.

Remember that moment,
all of those women, survivors,
dressed in pink and roses, standing
on the stone steps for their photograph,
radiant, shimmering, an ecstasy, a riot,
as if at any moment they might burst
into star-ash rapture, an unspeakable
Pentecost!


2.

Last year we walked out
into the cold morning, a flood
of people fanning out from the city
and spilling into the harbor.
The faces of those returning
were careworn, tired, lost in memory,
and if transfigured by the walk
and the shimmering, the sun
glittering off the lake, cold
for the season, sails sagging
in the listless air.


3.

This year is harder.
There are so may things we
cannot say or do, so many things we
dare not say or do. This year
we walk in the sun, as if
we are alone and yet we are surrounded
by survivors, friends and lovers,
children and mothers, thousands,
each of us thoughtful, each of us
carrying some name, some memory,
some prayer, some fierce grip
on what we hold most precious,
that star-ash rapture!, a radiance we
cannot betray.

Hay Season

She has butterscotch lips
that tremble in her sleep.

Summer nights I stare
at her breathing in shadows,

moonlight, warm wind,
curtains billowing -- is this

the woman I love?
Anyone I know?

I study the hollows
of her eyes, the luna moth

fluttering at her hallowed
breasts, her neck, the church bell

tolls, a freight train moans
from the valley. I have

prayed for this so long,
the honeyed air, melon

ripe, the gleanings,
again.