When I found my mother dead
I stepped outside to steady myself.
It was a summer at its zenith.
The night was now alive.
That’s when I saw a leopard slug
Climbing up the garage wall.
It was like I was suffering
A bad acid trip, all loss and no escape.
My eyes wide, taking in the world
Like it was some new form of reality.
I could see the slug’s
Slowly undulating body.
I could see it looking in the dark.
Nothing else seemed real,
Until cars of family and friends
Pulled into the driveway.
It was almost two in the morning.
We all went inside
To say goodbye to mom.
The next time I went out
I could see only the trail
But the slug was gone.

for my dad

The months of change do me no good at all.
In March and November, my anxiety spikes,
Under heavy, shifting pressure.
Not fear, but something primal--
Angst in my gut, like a bad meal.
At my age, a body knows the poetry--
A language older than the mind.
March wears winter like a mask;
It breathes winter’s remnants
And chokes out plastics and debris.
Only when I’m embedded in summer
Can I bear fruit from the soil of my mind,
Enjoy the long days of light,
And wear my old hat into heaven.

Almost a violet pearl between branches—
Radiant in an indigo sky--
Like a Taaffeite gemstone, rare in its brief glow,
A gift to the earth, while it lasts,
As Bizet’s aria Je crois entendre encore
Kisses the cool night air,
Before dissolving into dawn.

Sparrows pierce me like arrows.
Who knew robins had no bottoms?
A ****** of crows, frightening prose.
A hawk, a magnificent shock.
Do vultures feed on culture’s corpse?
Are kestrels kin to petrels?  
Have the pigeons been agreed upon?
Could plovers ever run us over?
Flocks of blue jays are on the way.
Cardinals and carnivals? Think about it.
A wood thrush in a frosty hush.
Swallows, those Apollos, don’t care.
Phoebes have the heebie-jeebies.
Owls and their lovely vowels.  
Cormorants and conglomerates.
Egrets sending their regrets.
Today, only the border crossings
Of Canada geese—give me any peace.

The little girl in a red jacket, skipping across
A pedestrian bridge made me smile today.
Her jacket was so red against the pure blue sky,
She seemed to be telling me something.
Spring was just a skip away, just a jump away,
And then she leapt into spring with joy,
And with a smile, I drove beyond winter at last.

Car chimes was what *** called  
All the bottles Joe would gather,
Drinking in the back seat on road trips,
Passenger to his own joyful reeling.  

Joe couldn’t go without drinking,
It was the poetry in his blood.
*** and I would do the driving
With Joe happily reciting W.H. Davies:

“No man to pluck my sleeve and say—
I want thy labour for this day;
No man to keep me out of sight,
When that dear Sun is shining bright.”

And when he’d recite those poems
The bottles would begin to chime
In rhythm to his tapping feet,
Music to our ears, laughter to our tears.

At death the brain must flood with DMT
For one to see fluorescent waterfalls
And feel warmth and love
After rising out of a world of hate
Now breathless you breathe with ease
Now flat-lined you surge with love
Now brain-dead you see all
Why didn’t you understand before
Why did it take your death to come alive
To see the light through the door
To see fluorescent waterfalls appear
To see Jesus and your grandfather
And to feel drawn to so much love
That to return the soul recoils  
You ask to stay but are told to return
To serve some penance in our hell
Where the righteous fade and the vile rise

A door opens like the birth of a child
Like the death of an old man
Who opens his eyes and sees at last
A door opens like sunlight through a cloud
You who haven’t seen it
Refuse to believe but a door opens
A door most definitely opens
And you step through
You turn to look back at your body
But the light is too bright
Pain now gone your way now clear
A door opens and you’re home

I flowed in the river
Went deep, thought I’d drown
But a branch caught my hand
I drifted through the unbearable purity
Of this water
I don’t know how long
The water stung my flesh
Until it washed me clean
I moved toward the bank
Where tree and leaf reflections
Shimmered on the surface
A palimpsest of light and shade
I saw souls in the shape of fish
Basking in eternity
I don’t know how
I stepped out of that water
It wasn’t my time
Still, I am the river
And I flow as I walk

for *** and Joe

This was way before computers and cell phones.
Some of you might remember.
You needed collections and anthologies of verse,
An atlas, an encyclopaedia, several dictionaries,
A Bible and The Golden Bough,
Brief Lives: A Biographical Companion to the Arts--
And, of course, a good study of poetic form and meter.
It was also nice to keep the spirit flowing
With several open bottles of wine,
And the sweet smell of Acapulco Gold
To keep the spirit whirling,
Like some ancient chant or music,
And two good friends who loved poetry.    
That’s how poems were made.

I went to the other side
And saw one I loved
She lowered her head when I called
I saw my mother and father
Standing in the mist
Their faces pale and soft
Tell me it is you mother
Tell me it is you father
And amid the multitudes
I saw my brother
In all his sadness
Searching for his son
And I heard my father
Ask a question in my mind
What have you become
What have you become
And then I woke
To face what remains of me now

Now that you’ve lost everything
Are you ready
To fall back on the stars
Now that you carry the weight
Of the past
Are you ready
For the lightness of being
Now that you’ve been broken
Are you ready to be whole
Leave what you own
It belongs to the earth
You belong to what’s beyond
Are you ready
Yes I am ready

These are spring clouds
Lingering behind leafless trees,
Spreading into purest blue.
Am I seeing things again,
Or is it just a case of pareidolia?
Faces bright with sunlight,
Angels in my skies,
Swans in my eyes,
Milkweed on my mind,
Apple blossoms in my rhyme,
Heaps of assurance
For fairer weather.

It’s too bad Ruth closed her fruit stand.
She’d sell fresh produce from the county
On a little piece of land she owned.
Ruth had an earth grain to her skin
Like bushels of greens, baskets of pears.
She loved to smile and talk,
Her heart as pure as sunlight on soil.
She had the wisdom of nature
And grit of work to her banter.
Now, when I drive past the stand,
It just looks abandoned, like Ruth
Had wandered into the wilderness,
And the blades of a standing fan
She left behind, turn without power,
Turn with the seasons, and haven’t stopped.

Touch the surface
Touch the light
Touch my skin
Touch my eyes
With your eyes
Touch the surface
Touch the pond
Feel the ripples
Hold the gold
Let us love
The same light together