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Category: Nature

POEM: hush

hush

a carpenter bee inspects the bird feeder
across the street, a neighbor mows short grass
there’s a woodpecker knocking in a tree behind me
the cat jumps up to say hi then bites my hand
I saw a video once about a man
who finds the last quiet places
I haven’t seen him around here

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28 March 2025
Charlottesville VA

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POEM: Glass House

Glass House

There’s an upside-down house
in the pond outside the cafe.
A squad of geese in tight formation
fly over (under?) it then
disappear beyond leafless trees.
The glass-smooth pond waits
for the return of its winged tenants.
Spring has called them north,
back across the imaginary border
recognized only by us,
discomfited as we are
by the idea of freedom.

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15 March 2025
Ruckersville VA

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POEM: Tonight, My Heart Is North

Tonight, My Heart Is North

1.

Swallows, bat-like,
swoop over the sycamore.
A low breeze raises blades
of grass beside our blanket.

The sounds of South Sudan
mingle with the clinks
of leashes and collars
and the sneakered footfalls of walkers.

The cat chases imaginary prey
up the trunk of the tree,
squirrels passing unnoticed
mere feet away.

2.

A break with routine:
I’ll forego a shower
so as not to miss
the sound of the rain.

I waited till the small hours
to close the bedroom window —
preferring a damp carpet
to the loss of the waterfall.

Since I was a kid
I’ve loved the car wash,
the sense of enclosure,
of safety in the flood.

This pre-dawn morning,
my bed is my transport —
from its shelter
I adore this world of water.

3.

It’s been raining for days —
today, warnings of a tornado,
but none appeared.

“If one comes I’ll run out,
let it take me,” I said.
“Over my dead body,”
they said, “I’ll knock you out.”

Tonight, my heart is north:
on the shores of the Memphramagog,
where a skunk slithers
around my legs;

on the beach at Provincetown,
kneeling in the sand
to photograph the wooden Buddha
I’d carried in my backpack;

after a movie on North Street in Pittsfield,
stopping to capture the sun
as it sinks between the buildings.

Part of me is always there —
walking the rocky beaches or
breathing in the Berkshires air or
looking over the waist-high wall at Quebec or
pulling a smooth stone from the edge of the Housatonic.

That ground — the land of my birth —
captured me a half-century ago.
It has never let me go.
I never want it to.

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September 2024
Charlottesville VA

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haiku: 24 April 2024

starlings in my yard
the memory of you
on my lips

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24 April 2024
Charlottesville VA
NaPoWriMo Day 24

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POEM: Faith

Faith

You’re growing flowers for the first time.
Seeds to seedlings to holes in the ground.
It’s an act of faith, to leave them there.
To trust in growth, in earth, in rain.
To believe that in the end beauty rises.
This is a holiness worth worshipping.
This is a sacred rite to perform.

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11 April 2024
Charlottesville VA
NaPoWriMo Day 11

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POEM: The Stages Of Watering A Dead Plant

The Stages Of Watering A Dead Plant

The first step is to not admit defeat.
Even as green turns to brown
and the leaves curl inward,
you must cling to delusion.

The soil will accept the water,
at least for a while.
It will join you in looking away

as you fill half a teacup at the kitchen sink
and upend it into the pot.

After a few days, though, the embarrassed soil
will release its burden onto the dish below.

This is the crucial moment,
as you dutifully carry the dish back to the sink,
then open the curtains
to bathe the corpse in light.

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25 November 2023
Charlottesville VA

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POEM: Describing A Satellite

Describing A Satellite

For the Earth,
both hands in an arc.
A fist for the moon.
Gravity a rope,
unseen in the dark.

Palms up for the tides,
both high and low,
the hands raise and lower
as they ebb and flow.

The planet spins,
the pull taunts,
the moon is what
the water wants.

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20 September 2023
Charlottesville VA

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