Lies the Light

Soft lies the light on the fern in the wood; still lies the love that we had, that we could –   Long creep the shadows among grass-green blades; grave is the tongue that once held faith –   Slow arcs the moon across the cold, starry, sky; steady beats my heart ‘til I die, … More Lies the Light

Black Horses Wet

And shining in the green field As though they are just-painted models In someone’s miniature world, Set just So as We fly down 577 while Sun and rain leapfrog over each other, Empty houses, fallow fields, A woman pulling weeds In a rectangular patch Reclaimed from the wild, Destined for the wild In 40 years … More Black Horses Wet

One For the Road

I am drunk on this new summer twilight, the world’s wash is golden-hued burdens liberally poured, and so I will roll in the fields where the corn is laid out in straight, sober lines, the light Creeping between them like water rising slow – I will lick the tree trunks and the underside of leaves … More One For the Road

Everything About this Bike Ride Tells Me I am Going to Die

This deep June evening with the sun pulling away from the sky Sinking into the earth, its journey more than half gone, like mine – This soft gold light finds a way through the blossoming dogwood, Lights up the slats on the barn with gossamer gold, makes beautiful The old; This bluebird dead on the … More Everything About this Bike Ride Tells Me I am Going to Die

Folding Winter

Brown beer bottle clots spot Winter’s arterial ditches; He coughs up litter – golden bow from a Christmas wreath, a decaying newspaper fat with ads. A dead deer is suspended in the cold water at the edge of the forest, glassy eyed – a Russian Tsar, preserved; Winter clings to the brown land, a lover … More Folding Winter

The Bard Owl

  The scolding birds caught first my ear, then drew my eye into the tangle of midnight black pine tree silhouettes pressed hard against the late afternoon palette of deepening blue strewn with soft blooms of white, my glance caught then by the barred owl with his back against the black bark and his head … More The Bard Owl

Unleashed (A Sonnet)

First winter snow has tripped and falls and falls, I lace my boots and take my sheltered lens; Behind me, windows throw a yellow pall of slanted patches on white-trousered lawns; Snow stills the trees and fills the prints of those who walked ahead along the unlit road; We will not meet, my pace unhurried … More Unleashed (A Sonnet)