The sun shines bright on Agate Bay.
Lake Superior is cobalt cold,
And the wind never stops,
Hurrying the little waves,
Onto the red pebble beach,
Which hurts bare feet.
Two girls in bikinis walk
With eyes downcast,
Looking for the pretty stones.
Indifferent to the gelid wind.

Why must I die?
I asked the man in the black robe
As he sharpened his bone-white knife
My time here has been so short
He stepped closer
And smiled
(Why does death smile)?
You should be grateful
Everyone must face me
Naked and alone
Unable to flee or cajole or bargain
Or bully
He lifted his blade
Or would you prefer
An immortal ******?

A Tuesday I should have been in school,
Sitting in the basement,
With my father,
And my grandmother,
And my brothers and sisters.
Dad reading from the Bible.
I looked up through the window,
And saw the gurney wheels roll out the front door.

They call in blue shade
The kind they don't like
Nothing grows beneath the tree
They like green shade
The kind that shares
But the hemlocks still stand
And the pines are dying.

I couldn’t find the car
So, I walked that night
Past tall stone churches,
And trees too big,
And gardens with wizards hiding in the corners.
I shouted in the courtyard of echoes
Was dazzled in the hall of illusions
I walked in bare feet
Through fields of herbs
By secret ponds of golden fish
And looked through the window
At the iron towers
Silhouetted by the blue dawn.
Until they told me
It was time to go.

Two cats in an open window
Big cat wants
to preserve his prerogatives
Little cat thinks
it should be his turn
But for now,
It's time to watch birds
together.

I keep thinking about the lion
who could pull down a buffalo alone
But when they shot him with a tranquilizer dart
And weighed him in a canvas sling
He weighed only 400 pounds.
Too small to ever win a pride
He ended as a pile of bleaching bone
He died as he hunted – alone.

I sing no songs of mystic whales
I find no ultimate harmony
In the balance of caribou and wolves
I do not proclaim the salvation
Of man in the wisdom of the wild
The law of nature is a cruel knife
And I know the dark underside of the woods
Is the death by rending of all who
Live in its green halls
Except that one creature who chose
To walk concrete passageways
And live by the hum
Of his own constructs
I do not begrudge my ancestors their choice
To flee the ruthless machinery of nature
And seek a longer life
In a world of straight lines
And unnatural light
Why then does my soul fill up with peace
When I watch the sun set
In a sky brushed with
Cinnamon and gold?

I sat by the water
In my Walmart folding chair.
A gull came to visit.
He told me
He played on the wind all day,
But his feathers were finer
Than my polyester fleece.
I think I saw that in the Bible.
Then he flew away
With one of my corn chips.

I saw a dark rainbow,
An arc of shadow and red,
Caught between the setting sun,
And a storm in the east.
Light and dark in conflict,
Locked in somber beauty,
Against the end of day.

Are you still alive?
Or did your mother’s mistake
Give birth to a child
With her own death already within?
I remember your head on my shoulder
When you told me
“I’ll probably be okay.
But I might need a hysterectomy.”
You never gave me the chance
To face that future with you.
“Maybe we both needed it,”
As you closed the door
I looked you up on Facebook
You’d be sixty-eight now,
If you lived.

Only when the leaves have fallen
And the world is quiet
As the snow falls softly
Can I hear the lonely wail
Of distant trains
As they run down the tracks
Far away from my window

I remember sitting at the top of the stairs
At night
To hear adult secrets from below.
They talked about Polio
And Selma.
“We’ll have to keep his bedroom window closed.”
“Did you hear that sheriff with the sunglasses?”
I remember the iron lung wards,
Like graveyards for the living.
I asked my father if the protestors were crazy.
He said “no.”
I remember they called Sabin a hero,
The March of Dimes moved on.
We moved to an integrated school.
“I’m not colored,” Olonzo told me.  “I’m black.”
I remember mounting tapes on the night shift
With Don.
We played chess when it got quiet.
We joked about playing black and white
Until he got killed.
Now Black Lives Matter
And my mask hangs next to the car keys.

We’re allowed to walk
Down by the river
During the Plague
Stepping aside for the others
So they don’t get too close
While the lustful geese
Joust, just like
The middle ages
And the river rolls down to the sea.

Some of today's children
Still swim in wild lakes,
Where the fish nibble toes,
And weeds slither around bare legs.
They sing songs together,
Which echo across the water.
Two loons herd their children away,
And their prehistoric
Cries of protest
Echo across the water.

You don’t sleep well in hospitals
Someone always bustles in
To bring your suppository.
At night, they ship out the visitors
Leaving flowers and balloons stirring in the air conditioning
It’s dark
Except for the light under the door
And quiet
Except for
The distant beeping at the nurse’s station
The balloon faces leer from the shadows
While I watch Forensic Files marathons
Waiting for the next dose.
You feel good for three hours
But the meds always wear off before
The nurses will give you another.
When they come, a quick pill in a paper cup,
And you can sleep for a while
The fourth hour is the hardest

I used to pray at bedtime
That your electric violence
Would spare our house.
Once I stood on a summer night,
Bare ankles wet with dew,
As your voice rumbled across the fields,
And you lit the clouds beyond the trees.
Later I drove a car,
Secure that my steel box
And rubber wheels ungrounded me.
But you set the wires swinging,
And unbearable blue light
Cast black shadows through the windshield.
Now the sky grows darker,
And the wind is in my face.
You strike close,
Then closer,
And closer still.

Cool guys in black slacks
Hot Chicks in stiletto heels
Drinks raised in garden-level bars
And a few couples
With baby carriages

On the shore
Of the dark lake,
I awoke,
When someone said
"Hey, Simpson"
Outside my tent.
My name is not Simpson.
The voice spoke again,
Then another, then a chorus
Of "Hey, Simpson".
The next night I awoke
When someone said
"Hey, Edgar"
Outside my tent.
My name is not Edgar.

Only ten percent of my DNA is
Mine
Which seems to prove
I do not live alone
I should feel one with
All life
But instead, I feel
Infected

Crows flock in the graveyard
Of St. David’s cathedral.
We walk under the gnarled trees.
My wife takes my hand,
“Have I told you I love you today?”
She does that.
No, but you did wipe crow ****,
Off the back of my neck,
With a tissue
From your purse.

Zero degrees but I was warm in my bed,
Feeling safe and immune to all outside dread.
The wind beat at the windows and near hid the voice,
That chilled my warm bed with its obvious choice:
To hide in my blankets and close off my ears,
To the crying for help now choked off by tears,
Or get in my clothes and go out in the night,
Offer help I can't give, and try to do right?
I'd heard all the stories of people who'd died,
While neighbors around chose to stay home inside,
Where it's warm and it's light and screams aren't heard
If your heart is all closed, and your soul interred.
So I put on my clothes and put off my fear,
And went out in the cold and strained hard to hear.
The night now was silent, the wind alone spoke
Of lonely and frigid and dying for hope.
The cold stung my ears, my breath froze in my hair,
And something remained of that voice of despair.
I could hope the police brought help for her grief,
To me they brought only a shallow relief,
I then turned away and got warm in my home,
And tried to forget the deep chill in my bones,
Forget that the city is full of such fear,
And it's warm and it's light and it's empty in here.

A world,
Once serene,
Blessed with dignified change
At the pace of shifting continents,
And eroding mountains.
The epochs rolled on.
Then came infestation,
With its slimy tendrils.
Every rock fouled by growth
Every crevice dark with
Rot and decay.
Filaments grow upward and branched
Giving shade for corruption
Beneath their moldering feet.
Some run across the festering plains
Trying to rise higher and live longer
Only to be rent limb from limb
And sink into the ooze
That strips flesh from bone
The muck always wins
And the cycle of death continues
Until the sun, disgusted,
Burns the world clean once more.

In Texas,
Land of guns,
And oil fields,
And chain gangs,
They warm sea turtles
In plastic bins
When it gets cold,
And send them on their way
When the sun returns.

You'd take my hand and wait to see,
What I'd say when you loved me.
I know you must have wondered why,
I never gave you like reply.
But lady, you must understand,
Why I only squeezed your hand.
Love enough was only there,
To be important to be fair.
I told my self to be beguiled,
I only needed wait awhile.
But before that time you set me free,
Was the problem you, or was it me?

I found a little fish
In a little pool
Halfway up a cliff,
Jumping bravely up the trickle
To the next pool
Which was not there
That little pool is the measure of his life
unless he jumps too far
And dies
flopping on the rock.

A woman with three children
Lost one.
He ran away laughing.
But a woman with a teen-aged son
And a big smile
Swooped in a like a low-flying aircraft
And caught him between her mother’s *******
And took him back.

I’m told that Mrs. Firefly,
In a hungry, not a **** mood,
Will blink a luminescent lie,
And use the answering male for food.

I’m sure that Mr. Firefly
Believes he rules the summer night,
And flickers proudly as he flies
To that blinding, binding, blinking light.

The teacher traced the golden lines
Across his Mercator projection,
(Now considered imperialist.)
The Frigid zone:
Where people live only to survive
The Torrid zone:
Where life is too easy
We should be grateful
To live in the Temperate zone:
Where the challenge of the seasons
Makes men prepare and plan
And make their alabaster cities gleam
How cruel of us
To deny them
Our metaphor.

At Camp Sloane,
After waterfront,
They came for Moose.
"Your mother is sick,"
They told him.
"She's going to die."
Moose went home.
We went to campcraft.
My mother died next winter,
After a long illness.

I felt fragile, weak, and small,
Beside the mighty waterfall.
But I saw, upon the safety rail,
A creature that was still more frail.
She spun her many-circled net,
Beside the cataract, and yet,
Feared not the water, as did I,
And looked not past her juicy fly.
Did she know the water green,
Which thundered past her, sight unseen,
Is no more mighty in God's eye,
Than the beauty of her mist-jeweled line?

Red:
The glimmer of Mars on a northern lake
Sandblasting the old battleship’s belly

War:
Men in blue jackets line the railings
Bloodless hands signed the armistice,

Thursday:
Too early for a drink after work
White faces watched the stock market fall

Blackboards:
Teacher’s pets got to clean the erasers
The sound of fingernails could twist your stomach

Convenience:
What a thing to base society on
Driving down to pick up a box of hamburger helper

Michelangelo:
Woman’s ******* on men’s bodies
Freeing the form from the marble

Igneous Rocks:
Lava flows melting the asphalt driveways
Ocher glow on the bellies of helicopters.

A warbler with his jewel-bright head,

Caught my eye as he sped

From nest to branch to arcing skies,

Above his leafy paradise.

Beneath my feet, I barely saw,

Entrapped by a serpent's jaw,

A dying toad with his last breath,

Fighting against a gruesome death.

If tempted by the warbler's trill,

I was chastened by the reptile's ****.

Weak of claws and teeth and hair,

**** in Eden would I share

The songbird's or the brown toad's fate,

If I should take my nature straight?

All things die,
Even tree houses,
And trees.
Far away,
The children who played here,
Among green leaves,
Sigh
Their children
Never call.

My parents used to fish
On Castle Creek
With canvas vests and wicker creels.
They always caught their limit.
And we had fresh trout for breakfast.
Last year
I drove my father
Up Castle Creek,
Alone and with knees too old
For clambering on wet rocks.
We stopped and talked
To a fisherman
With nylon gear and neoprene boots.
My father told him where the fish were.
Then I drove him home,
Down castle creek,
For the last time.

The ghosts of the dead give no shade
In this cemetery of stumps.
Elsewhere, the seeds left behind
Sprouted, and the forest lived again.
Not so on Kingston plain,
Where the life of the very soil failed,
Now a field of Bracken fern and lichen.
But, here and there,
An Aspen lifts it's quaking leaves.
In the shade, the lichens yield,
And grass grows again.
"Perhaps in another hundred years",
The ghosts whisper.

It must be strange to have five feet,
Which open clamshells nice and neat,
And hunt the shallow ocean floor,
Equipped with these and little more.
One day washed up high and dry,
Underneath the arid sky,
To end your days on some child's shelf.
I think I'd rather be myself.

In the slate cold
And grey ice of January
A few song birds
Raise brave voices
Overhead
Flights of crows
Wheel in their thousands
What hope is there
For spring?

The reflection of a star
Shimmering on the night-dark water
Born in the heart of a fierce sun
A million years
Jostled by his neighbors
To reach the surface
Then - free at least!
A hundred years more
Through dust and meteors and comets
To find a tiny planet
Then reflect off a quiet lake
And improbably die
In the rods and cones
Of my insignificant eye.

My friends call it a transition
A new phase of life
The guiltmongers scowl
"Not everyone is as lucky as you"
I sit with drink in hand
And watch the setting sun
The transition from this phase
Is death.

An old man
Sat on the rocks
And scowled
At the boy with the blue hair
And baggy shorts
Who was swimming in the rapids
Daring the others to jump in.
The old man
Remembered,
And smiled

There was a secret sidewalk
In my hometown
That we walked every day
Coming home from school
Despite the shroud of hanging inchworms
That veiled the path
Through our little wilderness.
I went back last year
To find a row
Of swimming pools.

I was supposed to be
A warrior,
The son and heir,
To the old crusader.
But motivation is not in our genes,
And a man’s determination
That the next generation
Will be different,
Sometimes wins out.

Two heads, chins resting comfortably
On each other’s coils.
Eyes Fixed
Glazed or implacable
Far Away
Entwined tails
Writhe in ecstasy

The cat
Brings my wife toys
At night
He drops
A velvet mouse
By her head
And curls up at her feet
I pull her close
And feel the soft flannel
I left for her
Under the Christmas tree.

I like the woods
when my heartbeat is louder
than the fall of snow

I don’t like the woods
When the roar
Of snowmobiles
Drives blue smoke
Through the trees.

For the quiet of the woods and sound of loons,
I went to the island to be quite alone,
But a yacht in the harbor was playing loud tunes,
And flying a buzzing remote-controlled drone.

The wind brought the smell
Of aspen trees
Down from the Rockies
Clearing the smell of wood smoke
In that town of Arab princes
And Physics institutes
And visiting Tibetan monks.
My father settled his old bones
On the front porch.
“Son”, he said, perhaps knowing
The staleness in my heart,
“Why don’t you go to a lecture at the institute?”
So I walked through the fragrant streets,
As sunset lit the mountains tops
Above the shadowed valley,
To the auditorium crowded with far-seers.
“What is the origin of supermassive black holes?”
“What role does dark matter play in the evolution of galaxies?”
And the staleness blew away with the wood smoke.
My mind wandered across the universe
As I walked home under the starry sky,
Telling my wife, so far away, of my rediscovered awe.
I looked up to see maroon robes
And the gentle face from the posters:
“Hear the Dali Lama speak.”
With my android to my ear,
I smiled.
And he smiled.
As the wind flowed down from the mountains.

They freed the river
A steam shovel on a barge
Gnawed the dam down to bedrock
And the river ran free
Now alders line the banks
The salmon have returned
The holy men’s prayers are answered
But a flood washed out the road
To the dam
Last year.

Ten-thirty AM in the campground,
Mourning Doves coo their sad sound,
People air their damp sleeping bags
Children swarm on electric scooters.
(In my day, it was roller skates)
Then, the diesels rumble to life.
Wives with cell phones direct the backouts,
Don’t run over the scooters!
Speed limit: five miles per hour,
(When are we going to go metric?)
Yet the earth trembles
As they pass by, single file.
Above, old white men look down
From their Plexiglas canopies,
The last one towing a smart car.
(To save gas, I presume)
The rumble moves down the county road,
The electric scooters swarm again,
And the Mourning Doves resume their laments