Tuesday, November 19, 2024

INSURGENCY

There is something 
to be gained from
observing the way 

light's recalcitrance 
accumulates 
on a late November day—

when heavy gold rays
strike the trees' 
meager branches 

and seem, 
for the first time 
all year, to outspan them.

And though, as they
must do, they pass
right through,

for a moment, 
they seem to want 
to stiffen and hang,

like jewels 
on a pendant, for a week 
of afternoons—it's as if 

the light knew 
any better than you 
or I do 

how to own more 
than a moment 
in this world, 

how to thwart time, 
how to own it,
how to stay. 


Monday, November 18, 2024

RECURSION

What is it like 
to partake 

in the next life? 
What would it take 

to be—and stay 
at peace?

Experiment: stand alone 
at dusk, 

trying sincerely 
to picture the deceased 

as agile, pliant; 
as distant and laughing; 

as slapping 
at the silver 

waters—privately, 
but all 

together—shining 
in an endless sea.

*

Everything still 
reminds us 
of them—

especially the way 
they still remind us 

of all the things
they never can be.


Friday, November 15, 2024

CATCH

The truth can't be 
refused by the lowest-
lying waterhshed: 

now plus acceleration 
due to gravity
equals then;

in dribs and drabs, here 
must diffuse 
into there. 

If only 
a washbasin 
could be invented 

to collect the bygone 
present which 
condenses from thin air—

to preserve the raw 
and the too-
haunted things, 

and forestall them awhile 
from that freefall 
into yet

a vessel to protect 
the still-
pure and unadulterated, 

to hold 
the only thing 
we can know

and prohibit 
even the littlest 
spill. 


Thursday, November 14, 2024

DON'T OVERTHINK THIS ONE

The goal of all thought 
is to redirect
itself; 

to reach a grand end—
and then
to start over. 

In that sense, reflection 
is a threat 
to survival; 

careful second guessing, 
a burial plot. 

A retrospective lesson
reads a lot
like a tombstone—

a tombstone which, 
to instinct, also 
doubles as a roadblock,

bringing wild movement 
to a screeching halt. 


Wednesday, November 13, 2024

CHRISTMAS COMES EARLY

V of gray geese
plows the air 
of necessity,

trawling invisibly 
the last temperate clouds—

scours dull belief 
in the promise 
of winter

intoned in a far-off
untroublesome melody—

clears a fleet path 
for that 
heavenly peace 

in which, perchance, 
to sleep.


Tuesday, November 12, 2024

MATURITY

As flocks 
of pigeons 

sweep low 
above fountains 

in tacit sync—
then break—
then repeat;

as the once-
august leaves 

now stuff gutters 
and steep 

leftover water 
into strange,
reddish tea—

so too may
equanimity 

advance 
and retreat, 

taking no more 
or less pleasure 
in either 

than the craving 
for stability 

used to take   
in each. 


Monday, November 11, 2024

NIGHTMARE

Everything out there 
being patently 
what it is: 

two 
succeeding one, old age 
displacing youth—

no hiroglyphs 
to illustrate the march 
of our days, 

no metaphors 
to explicate as proof—
and definitely 

no lessons to tease 
from eternity's 
hashed miscellany; 

our tongues 
fuzzing over, 
turning gray-green

from atrophy—
by which you'd think
I might really mean 

apathy—but no, 
I don't, 
sadly.