EAST

At the corner where roads 

intersect beyond the harbor,

beyond the last driveway,

the last dock, the last pier, 

one last stretch of stones, a

last gasp spreads itself 

to join the dying great lake

where six swans swim white

against the firmament.

The lake has fallen.

Stones surrender to muck 

and weeds.  The swans are

unreachable, motionless 

except to bend their  sweet 

elegant necks in the cold deep, 

gliding effortlessly.  

This is what it means to be

alone, without thought 

or intention, stuck here 

on this island's end, knowing

you will always be lost.

Out there, beyond the glimmering,

you see the faintest shimmering, 

the ghost of all you've left behind.  

BOATS AND ANCIENT RIVER GODS

All summer outside my

window the river traffic

glides by, great lakes tankers

 

laden with cement, bleeding

at the hull, 3-masted schooners

with dories trailing like orphans,

 

sailboats and yachts and boats

of every size and class —

all day the drawbridge yawns open

 

for maritime commerce

and pleasure and sport,

fishermen in oilers, pot-bellied

 

Hemingways commandeering                  

cigarette boats and catamarans

and pontoon boats festooned with

 

Italian Christmas lights and

mylar balloons bobbing

in the wind, flotillas

 

of kayaks, canoes, racing sculls,

rowboats and powerboats spilling

to the gunwales with bronze-skinned

 

buxom-bikinied mermaids, their

luxuriant hair waving, but

it’s the working boats that

 

grab me, the meat and potatoes

fellas, the gargantuan

barges hauling pyramids

 

of coal and scrap metal in silence,

pushing back the water in

a garland of brown foam,

 

the tugs churn and shudder against

the current, bringing tons of dark freight,

and on top of each heap sits

 

one sea gull, fat and lordly

like some ancient river god,

resplendent admiral of our fate,

 

 

our fear, comedians of

the waterways, philosophers

or the harbor, pompous poets

 

of the people they

stare down on,

dreaming our demise. 

 

We are their subjects, their slaves,

their minions, fated to

                                    await the coming disruption

 

when order will be restored

and they will once again

reclaim their right to ascension. 

 

 

 

RANGE LINE ROAD

Driving the island roads, slowly, 

     with the windows down, feeling 

          honeyed air glide over our skin, 

we spotted them looping 

     in the magnificent blue sky, 

          four eagles swooping, sporting 

in a figure 8.  We followed them 

     as they arced and swooned, pulling 

          onto the roadside weeds to wonder 

at their splendor.  We made love 

     under the aspen, naked and 

          shameless, the wind chilling our flesh, 

tense, almost savage, three times, 

     without pause or thought, yet sensing 

         the eagles' infinite flight, the 

fresh-cut hay, the wasps buzzing 

     and their stickiness, ridiculous 

          butterflies fluttering everywhere.  

Later, driving in silence, we 

     spotted an eagle in the road 

          pecking at a black rabbit and then, 

at the last second, flying off, 

     its giant wings just missing 

          the windshield -- we felt wingbeats 

in our hearts! -- and jolted in the ditch 

     to watch the twilight.

ISLAND

When we are too old to ride our bikes 

or each other we will ride the ferry 

here to this island every fall when the chill 

fills the air.  We will sit in adirondack chairs 

and look out on the bay's white waves, the deep blue 

churning, grey clouds rolling over us,  

silver birch like old bones behind us, dark 

cedars brooding.  We will no longer speak.  

Our children will not know what to call us.  

We will live in our memories -- you 

a little girl sleeping in your grandmother's bed, 

elm leaves washing in the Louisville wind, 

the sun dancing across your eyes.  I will 

dream of things I never really knew and

the jabber of Michigan crows crying 

like a baby we left somewhere behind.  

We will see the copper sunset 

in each other's eyes, smell 

the wheat in each other's hair.  

Bury us like an old rowboat 

rotting on the roadside.  

Cover us with dirt, and 

in the springtime plant a myth.  

It will grow.