A Child's Poem

Today I took a sunbreezy walk
Down the avenues all around me
Shegogagog Man Shegogagog Shebunagungamug*

I made a friend at the plant store
He said all-colored hyacinths smell the same
A miracle made on earth for our sky

Then those rainmuddy clouds came
A damp covering of cloud
The air dampcold

Christ is risen

*A lake in New Hampshire with an American Indian name,
where my mother swam in her youth

Natural Flow

I read something flowing
Some Virgil, some Wordsworth, some Keats,
Something beautiful and flowing

I'd like to choose words like they do
Write a poem that flowed on and on
Beautiful and fresh and clean

If only the words themselves were lovely
No special words, simple words
Like when you speak

And your words seem fine
My poem won't, but you do, you
Flow on and on, like a river

November Love Ember

a stone on fire,
i kick it as i walk
where you live,
roundabout a park:
the poet in the park
my face a blur:
i'm a stone on fire
the poet in the park –
now i like that
listen to me
chat this way
tell me how long
it has been
since summer
on fire
fall or winter,
no knowing the season
wet and cold
and blustery,
leaves blowing about
and all i feel is
I’m a love ember

Haiku

The pigeons fly, directly, on their sides, angling:
While I think of you.

More Haiku

I dreamed you were a garden
And I watered you

Memorial Day 1995

All weekend long I thought of you
To compose myself, my highest goal
Wondering if you thought of me too
Wondering what it is like to be a man
Thinking of women like me

Funereal Acceptance

poetry
being something
that comes
like thunder

why lament
when there
is rain?

Poetry

how to put into words
things that are wordless?

I could assign
words,
confine
images,
but that wouldn't do it.

And it certainly wouldn't express my meaning
that some things just won't find words.

(I had thought poems eluded me.
Now I see them as essentially vanishing.
I'll stop chasing them now.)

Through the Woods

the trees,
paintbrushes
the sky,
a bluegray canvas
if the sky
were not so blue
I would write more

Valentine Meditation

the sun is so warm
or is it an image of a beach?
in the winter
moving toward summer
talking to you
white weather on toward green
I drink in your warmth
your energy, your drive
sitting in your class
in the window
observing you teach math
so clean, so clear
I pick up pointers from you
your students focussed and quiet
knowing I will empty out
my mind, now solemn
my savings, waiting for you
I've always detached my self
from money
in the sun, in the broad window
I bask in the joy I feel
that I have you
when you could have so many others
younger, beautiful women
who would love your warmth
your energy, your drive
who would give you things
I just don't have now
except as I get them from you