departure
Mom and Dad wave good-
bye, my first time leaving home—
the lump returns now
night before I leave
an old guy’s good-bye to Rome
when it’s my home now.
He dreamed of
screaming at
the world.
It was always
so loud.
If only it could stay
quiet for even a minute.
He prayed he would hear
messages from his own mind.
Hoping he’d learn to ignore
the noise of the world,
telling stories he
didn’t care for.
Most days, only one
voice besides his own
mattered.
It was hers.
Two beers, I pick the label off your bottle.
I should welcome what you offer.
Shouldn’t be angry.
At the end of the night I lather soap
under cold water over your hand
while you wrestle a ring off then bruise
your own elbow on the sink edge. At least
we laugh at that.
i see my own body
burned again among
the ashes of everything
having barely escaped
a complete annihilation
admiring how strongly
i’ve made up my mind
i set sail searching for
the only obvious option
a better island volcano
marooning myself as i
always do I await the
kindness of fortune to
lure another washed up
stranger to my shores
Some sparrows
are singing
among the sheer
curtains of fog
at the edge
of daylight.
Damp grasses
smell of wild onion
and heavy dew-drift.
The horse listens, too,
and, I suppose,
marvels more
than I that the heavy
air does not stifle
their song.
Feeder fish swim
along the edge
of the pond—
creamsicle echoes
of the dawn sky,
now clear.
I watch for a doe
and her two spotted
fawns to appear,
but today, only
the babes approach
to nibble sweet clover
then disappear
as all creatures
of the earth do,
leaving me
behind the glass,
outside nature again.
Faith dwells in the rugged hellebores that survived
the winter of this White House, its traitorous war
against our planet. Plucky mauve buds rise up
even before the snow has melted, scores of new seedlings
huddled below. While corrupt leaders sow chaos,
compromise our constitution, trade in lies, power and money,
trust resides in the creeping phlox, its stripes of pink stars
inching through the rock garden, holding fast. To protest
dawn’s indecent tweets, morning after dewy morning
each stem in my field of wild petunias opens a fresh
face of purest lavender, the soul’s daily dose of hope.
There are shootings by ICE agents, National Guard
troops stationed in our cities, but the poppies return
to the scene in blazing sun. Plump buds and startling red
blooms weigh heavy on thin stems, still wave, stand strong.
The iris – Dutch, Japanese, Siberian – separated
and relocated to unfamiliar places, nevertheless
emerge intact – butterfly blue, purple and peach,
their sword-leaves wrapped protectively.
One night the Amazon catalpa bursts into bloom,
buries in heady blossoms the shoulder-high
Hoary Mountain Mint that in just one season bullied
its way through the flower beds that call this home.
The garden, the earth, breathe a sigh of hope.
So many songs about trains
Hear that lonesome whistle blow
I knew that sound
It was a comfort to my ears
Gigantic black steam locomotive pulling cars
Chugging through our little town
Engineer man knew how to drive it
Pull the passenger cars freight cars and the caboose
Rode that train many times
Even a few times alone without Ma
My eight year-old self feeling so confident
Made friends with a soldier who taught me card tricks
All the songs seemed to be written
by folks just like me who grew up
listening to that long lonesome sound
Bought our ticket rode the rails out of town
Always to come back to my familiar
old depot with its hard wood benches
Mister DeGroot the depot agent
waiting right there by the door
