This is my ode to you
Lover of life
Giver of joy

Your waters cascade from the mighty heights
Your power descends from above

Your like an ocean
constant
Ever on the move
Ever flowing

My song to you
Is my song of you
Your beauty
Your grace
Your smile
Your world the one you have created
That I so long to be apart of
That I will never be apart of

My eyes swell with tears
My lungs clench with grief
Suddenly Its hard to breathe
The weight of an eternity without you
Hangs heavey on my shoulders
Like millstones around my neck
It drags me to the depths
Taking me down
Deeper than I could have ever deemed possible

Will I ever you see you again?

And so I sit on the shores of this vast expanse
This host of water
This wasteland of sea
I sit here and I think of you
I think of the days we spent

The day in the park
The day in the mountains
The day in the hills
The day at the lake

I sit here and I think of all those times
And in a way I feel as if I am robbing eternity of its captive
I am freeing my mind to the wonder that once was mine.

I close my eyes and I think of you
I breathe life into dry bones
Bring back the love I once had.
And this my ode to you my long lost love

Your beauty will always be in my memory
Your smile never forgotten
Ode to you my long lost love
This is the song I sing for you.

Shrouded in Liberty
it moves across the land
gorging on the hearts
and faith of
small ones;
they whose homes
invaded by the cause,
depleted of life,
of love,
of choice,
find protection
a misnomer.
Buried deep in details
of little consequence
where minutia
is a governor
stealing choice
to feed the appetite
of this machine.
Where has gone
the mighty power
that once united all;
will Freedom
end this war
before a mighty fall?
Bring back the ghosts
that won it well
the proud, the free and brave;
their spirits needed in our own
to lead us from our grave.
Apathy would bury us,
cloaked in ignorance of bliss
while shrouded in Liberty
the beast deceives;
No army advancing
but what we're sold,
driving back the small ones
step by step;
the edge of a grave
ready for us to slip
into darkness.

And sleep in spite of thunder
Throw jewels in my open grave
I won't smile but I will wave
And sleep in spite of thunder

And rest in spite of turmoil
Even in dark hours
Greet my grave with yellow flowers
And rest in spite of turmoil

And be soothed in spite of trouble
Visit my stone in pastures shy
Send my tomb azure shards of sky
And be soothed in spite of trouble

When Peg laughs like Liz
deep woman-hearted laugh
eating beef jerky on Mesa Verde

the good hearts and smarts of women
come back to me, not guessing
any better than they at the time what love

meant, leaving them behind in sandstone time
going to my own cement, sandstone
or good mountain grave

having seen the sharp-shinned and sparrow
hawk flying and at rest, not at peace,
seeking prey from a ponderosa snag.

I left my woman behind to float
alone down the long canyon for feathers
and signs, she's making camp

the moon half full, the sun half high
sky full of planets birds and stars
I look up from the rocks

elements
housekeeping, thinking
love that's learned to love

from earlier loves
laughs remembered, heard
in the laugh of the woman who is my wife.

Rereading the poems of others
and my own. Community across
time and graves. What's left
exceeds in significance
one's last moment. Yet
his last moment must have been
exceedingly important
for the poet.

Nothing he did that day will seem meaningful.
While we prosecute the war
a pileated woodpecker and red squirrel
compete for sunflower seeds.
A winter slow
to assert itself.
I can still see my mother's father and his bowl
of filberts, almonds, walnuts
quiet weekday mornings.

Both grandfathers read sports
pages religiously. I don't know
if my grandmother who gave me the
anthology of, to date, dated
unreadable poems read poetry.
I remember my mother's mother spoke
rarely as an animal.

Writing but not knowing where I'm going
unlike Joan Didion justly
cannibalizing candidates
who didn't read the Constitution, Bill of Rights or
Federalist Papers. It's late,
I have not vacuumed or shopped for food.
Instead I reread
Phil Levine's Salami.

In the intermediate zone between heaven and hell
opinions and complaints, after much moaning, may
come to be held in common.

The way a flock of chickadees
moves through the woods, cheerfully,
each bird taking a turn on point.

All meaning must be found, here, in the middle zone,
notwithstanding fears that rend and own us,
of dying unknown.

A Spring day
the flycatcher broke its neck against our bay window
nothing changed.

I buried it, somewhat reverently, in a shallow grave.
No differently, really, than I would a man
who'd died suddenly.

Who'd left footprints in the snow
which became wild lily-of-the-valley, running pine
then snow again in time.

After long enmity
Sally hugs me, asks if I've been happy.
A moment in a year.

February, the light is long, more direct.
It's meaningless, repetitious
but held dear.

November is sweet, sunshine through bare trees, dry brown
      and fungus-free leaves companionably visiting among the
      dead
as I did yesterday our town's small graveyard military dads
      who recently died lie under polished stones embossed
      with actual photos of themselves and their wives
      flowers and plastic totems within a miniature picket fence
      overflowing with the emotions love and grieving of the
      living
beside or not far from simple wafer-thin old moss-covered
      stones on which I could not read the names.
Such peace I realized which may be found around any rock or
      tree has escaped me while I pursue my particular
      happiness and our particular war,
and such a blessing awaits me, too.

Fowl meadow grass - Glyceria striata - the striations
on the lemma. Drooping rachis
a weeping willow of a grass.

Recurring periwinkles, myrtle, Vinca.
Helicopter petals. Evergreen leaves.
Escaped from gardens, alien or native?

A little further by the spruce stand
a new mustard, cuckoo flower - Cardamine -
with pinnately compound leaves. What a find!

A good day turns bad.
After you've died, one of them dogs digs up your grave.
You may sit in the rain and think.

Maiden pink.
The dark circle inside the flower
a g-string or garter.

O to fail well. To lay low. To live long.
To run slow. Feel the hill. Pressing down.
Do less. Until one thing's done well.

In the holy spot
with the sitting rock,
an oak. Out back
shagbark hickory
and maple.

Ants climb the rock.
August, birds
celebrate flowering
weeds, the seeds
of autumn to come.

I am here to name it
and know it and help it
to grow. These mountains
are my grave. A good grave
to go to.

The crows have been
in conference, again.
A jay, blue, pokes
a hole through reality.
I find sumacs fruiting

and the male *** organs
of the Queen Anne’s lace.
Juncos glean the lawn,
an occasional nuthatch
in the butternut.

I hear a pileated
woodpecker jackhammering
and my neighbor’s skill saw
chirring. Ants crawl
on connecting interlacing instructions.

You are a cockroach

you are a big cockroach crawling up a pegboard
the kitchen light suddenly shines
and you must get through to the other side
but testing every evenly spaced hole you find
your shoulders will never fit
and to get away you've got to fall.

                                                          ­    fall
or refuse to crawl and wait motionless
until inspiration with an overview filters through
or you die of hunger, lack of love, fear of death
or the outlandish hands of another angry animal
with a wisdom wiser
but infinitely useless as your own.

so you die. but now the big hands are gentle
and you receive a respite of thoughtlessness
and the garbage grave has warm chicken bones
and you don't care what happens to you
or the oldest species of proud recalcitrant insects
or procreating it or foraging a grubby kitchen sink

for food. the joy of making life is new. let go,
and through the night be carried carelessly along.