was really nothing.
I was silent,
too caught up in the following to recognize him,
though I’d seen photos.                                      
                                           Mom took them,
the boy in a tailored suit,
on his trike or on the backyard swing,
the boy as master of the puppet show,
or sitting on Dad’s lap
(The Child’s World, Volume One, open to read),
proud creator of the model Alamo,
frowning into the sun with the Easter basket,
next to his Nonno who holds a drink, sporting a shiner
from a diabetic fall, the boy somber
looking straight ahead.                          
                                           Only when waking did I know him,
this guide to secret places. Now that he’s gone
with the fog of morning as I stepped over the boundary
into wakefulness,                             
                                 do I know what I would say.

Hey there! Thanks for coming on the show!
Some fun questions from our patrons, then we’ll let you go!

First just let me say how we all are dumbstruck
By your enormous, voluminous, big, loud truck!

It rumbles, it grumbles, it belches out smoke!
So tall that the wheels require 60 inch spokes!

But…

Why choose a whip which needs so much gas?
Is it simply to get your ice cream home fast?

Why do you take up four parking spaces?
Is it so no one your “off-roader” defaces?

When you gun it and run it, before walkers pass through,
Is it just cuz you have something better to do?

Rolling through stop signs, turning left on red,
Do traffic laws not exist in your head? 

Your bumper sticker says “This Man Puts Up a Fight!”
But have you ever hauled anything heavier than Bud Light?

One last question, you’re such a good sport.
(And we know that you have that appointment in court.)

With all of that going, From To and To From,
Have you ever been able to make someone come?

No appointments needed, a fair asking price:

is it the wood fire,
the deer outside in the dark,
the circle of family,
or the marshmallow chocolate
that melts our worries away?

Birds sing in the morning, and after a rain.
That’s when it’s easy to see Jesus.
Jesus likes to listen,
so they sing.  

St. Francis knew this.  

Birds were born knowing this.
But humans evolved a cataract of mind.
Behind mind, we remember
and write poetry.  

floral stem branches
out   lateral stretch toward light
orchid’s innate faith

Saxy Ledy

Triffic Laght

Glabal Worming

Fareign Longuage

You brought home from college that boy with the long 
hair and beard who was high day to night, cooler than cool,

jamming to Layla on the FM in his avocado green Fiat,
driving back from Lexington rolling joints while steering

with his knees: the road rushing past the little window
in back where I sit with Ace, the coal black lab, growing

older than my twelve years with each mellow mile we make,
taking our time because that’s what we have coming

out of our pockets, time and a couple of dime bags scored
from his friend who grows the weed on an unmapped

plot of state forest land. When you end it with him 
it breaks my heart. Where he is now, anyone’s guess,

but he lives on in the wind-borne scent from a group of teens
in the mall parking lot smoking a j and laughing,

in burning engine oil and the slow drift over hump-backed hills, 
in sly grins and shared secrets, in glorious rock ’n roll.

Does it seem as if
the birds are singing louder
these strange gray mornings 
the better to convince us
that everything is okay?

A wind comes in waves all this December night
It rises and falls then rises and sighs and falls again
Sweeping across the plains and lakes from so many miles away
At first calm with a hum and a whisper that builds to a roar
Then slams on the window and goes back to quiet
Way off high in the sky something is strong

Thick ice breaks off the branches and thuds on the roof
Sudden, shocking without pattern or rhyme, distressing
Flying ice and sticks come scratching at the glass
A pitter pat of raindrops without purpose or meaning
Automatic consequences of the wind

I only wish upon a storm that in our lives, you and I
Could feel meaning in our robotic expressions of affection
And why is there scratching and skittering and bickering
Like sticks scratching at the glass. And the thudding fall of
Ice into my life without need or cause, distressing
The pitter pat of meaningless formulae, numbing

For I know that way off high in the sky, deep in the heart
Of what is us, there is something strong
As sure and steady as nature. There is love
It’s roaring at the window
Let us trace it back to the whisper of its origin
Let us hum it to each other