3. NIGHTFALL (04/22-23-05/20/85)

By trees and stars and silhouettes,
By lamps' gratuitous duets,
Reflections in the evening lake,
Shimmering paths we often take.

As moonlight pales us hand in hand
Through dappling leaves along the strand,
Determined to enjoy the night,
We journey through the fading light.

Our footfalls make the only sound,
Scuffling lightly on the ground.
In our joined hands the pulses beat
And gather overpowering heat.

Our minds ignite and we rehearse
Refractions of the universe.                   [Home]

 

 

 

  4. PATRIOTISM (05/20-21/85)

We interrupt this program of your life
To tell you that, because of global strife,
It's time to summon military might
To plunge you all into eternal night.

In order that the government may live,
Cash in the only life you have to give.
Your government decrees it's time to die
For freedom, or some other pious lie.

Your government cares not for your condition,
Your government cares not what you believe,
Nor how your wretched next of kin will grieve,
But only how you fired your ammunition.

Through halls of government your nation drags
Your endless line of fetid body bags.                                  [Home]

 

 

 

  5. THE MOSS BEACH DISTILLERY (05/22-23/85)

The sky is azure, gold, bronze, violet.
Breezes feather the tin-lead hammered ocean
Into which slowly dips the lemon sun
Where cobalt-sepia horizon arcs.

Perched on the cliff in shadowed fading orange,
A last decent outpost of the occident,
Tiny, fragile as its crumbling ambience,
Shelters admirers of a timeless sea

Who look toward Asia through salt-spotted glass
As breakers roll from half the world away
To steal ashore astride the sloping coast,
Creeping slyly after scrambling sandpipers.

This place exists, but only in the mind:
A temporary truce of space and time.                   [Home]

 

 

 

 

  9. THE DARK (07/09-31/85)

Here we are once again in the cold,
Stumbling and lurching about in blackness,
Yet suspended, devoid of touch,
Perfectly capable of sight without eyes.

Faint luminescent grids box off parsecs.
How do we know it is cold?
How do we know it is without light or sound?
Why do we reminisce?

Do we still have life as we used to know it?
There is no pain to tell us.
Structures are no longer random.
Thought is untrammeled by feeling.

Although we know we will never come to rest,
We seem to have been put somewhere.                   [Home]

 

 

 

  14. THE GARDEN (11/06-19/85)

Rank boxwood hedges, opaque solid walls
Of waxy leaves, shelter us from disorder.
The formal garden floor is paved with grass,
Inscribed by flagstone lanes and beds of flowers.

Spindles of sunlight fall through lacy shade,
Slanting in late summer afternoon.
There is no sound. We have come here because
Others whom we have loved may walk these paths.

We have come to expect so much from them:
A nod, a thought, a hint of explanation.
We sense their presence; they remain unseen.
They are here, they seem to whisper, they are gone.

The voiceless spoke. What we have learned from them
Is part of us, though we cannot recall.                   [Home]

 

 

 

  15. GALACTIC PATHWAYS (11/21-22/85)

We lie supine, at rest, hand in hand,
Atop the hill on sun-warmed grass of summer,
Waiting for deepening evening to reveal
Galactic pathways of faint glittering dust,

Dark meadows slung horizon to horizon,
Refreshed with countless stellar buttercups
Whose blooms proliferate as blackness thickens.

Enfolded in the oceans of the night
We drift toward the end. Time closes in
As all of history parades above us.

We belong here among these eternal stars
Whether we want to or not. They tell us
That we pulsate heartlike reflecting them:
As surely as they flee, they will return.                   [Home]

 

 

 

  16. SEATED IN SPACE (12/13-17/85)

Seated firmly in space, cloudscapes below,
Black zenith, in an azure hemisphere
I split the continent. My life is held
Suspended in a silver cylinder.

Sailing wind-ripped stratospheric rivers,
Pursuing ever-disappearing sunset
Through gently-rocking tides of howling air,
I flee forever on this thunderous flight

In covenant with alien destination
Where herds of souls drift down dim corridors,
Where off-ramps, on-ramps, time-drenched waiting rooms
Will loom disturbingly familiar:

For those who stand awaiting my arrival
Are those who have been with me all along.                   [Home]

 

 

 

  20. TIDEWATER (02/13/86)

Each time I think of youth I am struck down
By its last currents tumbling me ashore,
Dispersing agitated through my mind
And disappearing frothy in the sand.

Youth flung me out to sea, age hurled me back.
Time tumbled me through lucent gritty shoals.
Today near death I am flung forward on
The shore of years, stripped clean by wind and spray

Of non-essential freight, light as a feather
From a passing gull, flung back, flung forward
Across the shell and sea wrack rubbled beach,
Flung back, flung forward into random rest.

Dark glinting geese flock high over my bay:
A burnished arrow to the southern sun.                   [Home]

 

 

 

  21. THE HIGH PLAINS (02/24-27/86)

The high plains glare; I stand knee-deep in zero.
Thin sunlight percolates the overcast.
The foothill air coils down in lethal sinews.
The mountains speak, their voices filled with snow.

I look into the future, death looks back,
Implacable. This landscape sends a warning:
You have a unique moment; it is gone.
Unite with us; we cannot be destroyed.

Fragile, chain-linked, we are forged in frost
As silent wind-chimes, ruffled by bleak breezes
Emit eerie prismatic shimmering.

Ideas now are sightless, soundless, senseless:
Lifelong decisions, frivolously made
Are scattered snowflakes in celestial pastures.                   [Home]

 

 

 

  22. CHANCELLORSVILLE, VIRGINIA (03/06-07/86)

The sun slants late across the spindly saplings.
The dank chill breeze snickers through dry dead leaves.
We stand transfixed; history whispers to us:
Ghosts, gray, ragged, serried, spring up around us,

Shuffling along dust roads through drifting haze.
Did leather harness creak? Did canteens clank?
Astride his horse, the General is among us,
Eyes burning from the shadow of his hat,

Driving without rest these terrified souls
Against the splintered flanks of beaten foes
Until the black night, shot with flickering orange,
Fixes him here. We see his monument.

Smoke puffs, bloody weeping in the thickets
Reverberate forever from this stone.                   [Home]

 

 

 

  23. GOODBYE, TWO-HAND BABIES (03/09/86)

I hold each of you in turn in my two hands.
Intently you each stare into my face.
Your baby steps run sparkling through my mind.
Your laughter echoes in my memory.

We grow together, we walk together,
We scatter; I admire you from afar.
Your voices comfort me across the distance:
We speak of people, places, things we share.

Beloved children, I cannot advise you.
I can only tell you what I have learned:
Life is ultimately terrifying
And each of you must find this out alone.

My love for you is the engine that drives me;
This is sufficient reason for my being.                   [Home]

 

 

 

  28. OAKLAND ROSE GARDEN (06/19/86)

Behold the burning roses in the glade
Come upon secretly in precipitous hills:
Bright blossoms glowing pink, lemon, orange,
And visceral colors of arterial blood

Blend wispy fragrances in formal groups
Arrayed among the ragged eucalyptus,
The steeply falling streets, tottering homes,
Careening cars, struggling pedestrians.

Behold the pounding of the human heart
Scaling the way to this plateau of grace
Whose quiet brilliant messengers of beauty
Compel us to approach and, nearing them,

Suspend the foolish errands of the time
To rest among these savory static flames.                   [Home]

 

 

 

  37. TANGENCY (9/11-12/86)

I wish convergence; we are happily met
In bright early September afternoon,
You tinier, more frail than I remember,
A blonde illusion fading in the sun.

Your blue eyes under gentle skies of blue
Peer at me sidelong over fleeting smiles.
We move too swiftly and I am aware
We share this orbit only for a moment.

In conversation fervent, positive,
We pace together to divergent goals
Until our tangency abruptly ends.

We stand; I take your farewell hand in mine.
Your warm firm touch transmits your interest.
You disappear and I return to earth.                   [Home]

 

 

 

  38. TERPSICHORE (09/28/86)

Young women dance diaphanous at a streetfair,
Clad in white scant costumes, their dark curls
Descending over shining silver headbands,
Their slippered feet a blur on filthy pavement,
To insubstantial pre-recorded music.

Tiny among the crowd that gangs around them,
Their thin limbs move in undulating chorus
As solos, duos, trios fashion rhythm.
They bring us grace: the boisterous present fades;
Lithe youth careens through time to ancient meadows

Where celebrations such as these were born
In supple measured steps expressing joy.

They stop. They bow. Abruptly here and now
Returns among rivers of shuffling mobs.                   [Home]

 

 

 

  39. TRAFFIC JAM (9/28/86)

Gautama says existence is unhappiness:
Unhappiness is caused by selfish craving.
Yet dimmest glimpse of insight offers this:
Without the self there is no happiness.

The crowded path where Tathagata labors,
The noble eightfold road, is clogged by masses
Honking, bleating for the right-of-way,
And wheels of truth roll off into the gutter.

All tortuous journeys lead to this highway,
And there is no one to direct the traffic

To that land where blossoms never wither,
Where golden gates shimmer like purest water,
The land that rises terrace upon terrace
Of diamond-clustered steps and shining jade.                   [Home]

 

 

 

  47. RANDOM NUMBERS (11/25/86)

Terse jolts of love drive us ahead in time.
What happens leads to what is happening.
Throngs swarm to different frightful destinations:
These terminals are loosely called the future.

Those of us who walk upright fail to see
Gross impact on the path of what may come,
For history is all of us careening
Through labyrinthine alleys into legend.

We are randomly-generated numbers
Marching in kaleidoscopic brilliance
Up and down remote ephemeral stairways,
Confronted always with closed entrances,

Pushing always oblivion ahead
While it rolls in behind us like a misty quilt.                   [Home]