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.