the man in the alley
is sketching city hall
downtown plein air
/ / /
15 July 2022
Pittsfield MA
poet, interviewer, musician, traveler
the man in the alley
is sketching city hall
downtown plein air
/ / /
15 July 2022
Pittsfield MA
Tanglewood Evening
on the lawn our attention
drawn to one woman coughing
as the pianist plays
***
four low voices slip
across the manicured grass
a warbler enters from the trees
***
air heavy with citronella
the pop of a cork
during the applause
***
a lone student’s violent end
transformed into melody
all breaths are held
///
Bastille Day
14 July 2022
Ozawa Hall lawn
Tanglewood
Lenox MA
rainbows on the kitchen floor
of a house
where no one lives
/ / /
14 July 2022
Pittsfield MA
sunlight on the water
children’s laughter
Fleetwood Mac vs Kane Brown
/ / /
13 July 2022
Onota Lake
Pittsfield MA
Fitchburg Metta Sutta
Kannon Bodhisattva looks down on my van
as I pass below an outcrop of rock
so I do a u-turn & head back for a visit.
The Vietnamese Buddhist temple sits on a steep
hill overlooking a small post-industrial town
somewhere near the middle of Massachusetts.
A journey of two thousand five hundred years
from India to China to Vietnam to the U.S.
ends in the driveway of a 19th-century house
that’s been put to a new use.
Kannon is the embodiment of compassion;
a being who has reached enlightment
but has chosen instead to stay here
with the rest of us until we can go, too.
That kind of work needs to be done everywhere,
& Fitchburg, Mass. is as good as anywhere else.
I walk around the building taking photos
of the statues & the flowers & the signs
(none of which I can read) & then I stop
& bow before Kannon to show my respect
& because I could use some compassion.
A light rain begins to fall.
/ / /
6 July 2022
Pittsfield MA
fan blades spin
in the reflection
of an iced tea bottle
/ / /
6 July 2022
Pittsfield MA
gone now
this colorful attempt
at utopia
/ / /
4 July 2022
Hancock Shaker Village
Hancock MA
summer wind shuffles
blades of grass
anywhere can be home
/ / /
3 July 2022
Tanglewood
Lenox MA
I save my place
in a dead poet’s words
with a goose’s lost feather
/ / /
2 July 2022
Wahconah Falls State Park
Dalton MA
black squirrel on the trail
surfaces distant memories
of summer in Japan
/ / /
1 July 2022
Appalachian Trail
near Dalton MA
little bag of popcorn
on a bench under a tree
no I don’t know which kind
/ / /
30 June 2022
Pittsfield MA
the sky is silent:
two loose feathers
on the back steps
/ / /
28 June 2022
Pittsfield MA
eastern red cedar
in a pitched battle
with the parking lot
/ / /
26 June 2022
Pittsfield MA