Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Far and Far Again, Alone (from the journal)




Colorless quiet morning after the rain. 
Just at the threshold of hearing,
many crickets.  From all sides—
awareness, selfhood.  8-1-12


Watching someone work is so relaxing.
The yellow and black swallowtail moves
from one rosy sharon to the next.  8-4-12


Whining catbird in the crab apple
doesn’t need an interpreter.
His tail is twitching.  8-6-12


Mourning dove and a thousand
crickets are drowned out by
a handful of cicadas.  8-9-12


Summer’s electricity rolls down in waves. 
Wren sorts out her breast feathers,
adds her own current, staccato,
the little sounds rounded and discrete
in the storms of insect noise.  8-9-12 


It doesn’t come like a river,
it comes in pieces like cricket noise,
parsed with mourning dove,
with space in between long enough
to purple the pokeberries. 
Like the overcast morning it feels whole,
but it’s not.  It’s only what the lasso
brings in one cinch at a time.  8-10-12


Too many leaves in the crab apple
to see him clearly, the big gray hawk the
crows chased in.  8-11-12


Weight is a funny thing.
It turns purple in the fall—
poke purple.  8-15-12


He likes to talk about it,
catbird does—the search for just
the right pokeberry.  8-18-12


Northampton and Bertie Counties, NC

The dead cities one after one.
The dead corn one after one.
The broken houses one after one.
The narrow road going through it all,
long like a gray snake with no eyelids.  8-26-12


The broken flight
resumes—the lake light
points the way.  8-28-12


The ream turns into folded books—
a desk overlooking the sea,
the wide open windows,
three yellow pencils,
a little girl looking off into the tomorrow
that comes today.  8-28-12


The long road has been running since Stockton,
the small motel along the old Burma Shave road.
The fair never remembered—the reason for going.
Only the quiet dark, the long road
and the coming and the going
measured by a small girl in the dark
listening for cars and the wonderful
sound of air, far and far again, alone.  8-29-12


Fat brown cicada, please call
from somewhere farther away.
You hurt our ears.  8-31-12. 


Without me the sea moves.
The last sip of tea
tastes only like tea.  8-31-12.



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