A Murder of Crows
An empty field calls them
and echoes of their calls.
Too few now come
to council and lament
their father’s father’s
days, when fields ran wet
with slaughter and corn.
Too few. The young
forget, as youth demands,
and time. They follow
the road and sing no more
amongst the scattered grain.
Too few. The caws
fall silent as the old
take wing and the sky,
once black, shades grey.
hooray! i love snow. getting 1-2 inches today. not much, but not bad for the time of year and location. regardless, it makes me happy.
and so, in order to mark the occassion, one from the vaults:
First Snow
Even when you expect it, it’s still a surprise.
Snow clouds never hold the same warning pain
as storms that make the summer skies cry.
Walking through memories in Central Park.
The growing wind unwinds your scarf;
my fingertips graze your neck as I wrap it again.
We kissed on that bench, under that tree
and everywhere between. A spring day,
the first our hands met.
Fresh snowflakes land in your lowered lashes.
You stick out your tongue with childish delight
to catch another, your lips still warm
as a spring day past.
work in progress. expect edits.
Sidewalk Philosophy
All cities are the same, each
in their different ways.
A city street is a still-life
of a blur; motion as a constant;
Heraclitus’s river. Change
the players, the scene is the same:
life, on foot and everywhere.
The old trees open their leaves
palms up, to cup the sunlight
and cast a noon time twilight
round children at their rooted knees.
first draft; very rough. loosely inspired by this discussion.
Lost Idyll
The tattered shreds of elephant
toes speak truths we seek
to keep unknown.
While Tennyson, in sorrow,
saw how nature lurked red,
in tooth and claw
he failed to notice
how ours hands remain
the bloodiest of all.
No savagery is noble;
our own least of all.
Yet God, mankind’s cruelest
creation, convinces us
we’re not beasts
but for the fall.
EDIT: lacking flow and poor transitions, particularly from the first to second stanzas. hmmm.
fragment of thoughts on a drive home from a business trip. been kicking around since then.
Rest
Only ease comes easy
at the end of a long day.
Even that comes with the price
of long practice watching cats.
another rough draft.
White Collar Blues
Weary. Oh not
with the bone-ache
of working men,
that day-end drain
and strain on all
sinew and tendon
and limbs longing
for langorous ease.
Weary. Of thought
neverending, never
slowing, ever
racing around
the hamster-wheel
of the forebrain
while always, only
wishing for the
magic-zen-eraser
clarity of glass,
empty. Blank.
And glass, full.
Whisky.
…
edit: 12/12. see. told ya i’d work in hamsters. [grin]
rough draft
Gulf Coast
The wind in the palm leaves
whispers of rain. Not just
of imminence, nor only of memory.
But all: a song of deep green
longing for days where grey
washes blue from the skies.
With rustling fronds they speak
of shaping clouds and conspire,
with rooted will, to seed
them with the idea of water.
Barefooted, listening, basking
in the yellowed blaze; I sink
my toes beneath the moist
flesh of the earth
and am inclined to agree.
Tournesol
The dewed cool of the morn and I,
with my fingernails
under the dirt, sowed them as children.
Months long have I exhaled small clouds,
whispers of water;
held the sun still to shine them.
And now.
Walk slow in the shade between
the rows and let them
bend yellow heads low, to kiss you.
The jungle has eaten the city.
Only roots are left behind,
crossed with pathless trails all
leading beyond this shore.
This slim sandy green spit, stretched
into a dock over cleared blue.
These planks, rough-hewn, uneven
move under my feet. They feel
grey, bleached by sun and time.
I walked past time to get here:
crumbling in places, grown tall
in others, stumbling into now.
This spot where time stills
into a salted breeze
playing the marsh reeds
I long to dip my toes
and wonder if night brings mist.