I’m a rescue
Don’t know who rescued me  

Don’t write a check to whoever did
just send love to your heart

it began in darkness
blue glass beads found
in an antique chair…
shinnering in lamp-light
a poem in my hand

deep inside
blue glass…
    magic

hands clasped
bridging lifetimes
closer than  

Michelangelo’s
near touch

Trinkets of floral
splendor cascade down the rock
garden like a summer parade. 

        Tachikawa Air Force Base, 1955

Off base there’s a bomb shelter
and an empty clothesline
partially covered with grass
five Japanese boys, three girls pose
on top of the curved roof

beyond a fence are barracks—
long, two-story structures
it has been ten years

As the ice breaks on the pond 
on a warm February Sunday,
the air delivering
floral hints of the future,

you and I stand and wait
for the car to arrive
that will take you away
to start your new life,

even if you do find a way back
for a visit, driven by nostalgia,
or a hope, it won’t be the same, 
the cabin weathered by harsh dust 

the grand maple gone.
I’ll have changed, too, 
when you spot me
walking up the steep hill

to the road, so slow 
and old by then 
you’re sure to mistake me 
for somebody else.

the breeze swishing the tails of curtains

I sleep with the windows open to let the earth say hello to the house that has been built upon its back
thank you for that

At sunset I water the pots on the terrace
left by Brother Gardener who’s off to Ireland
where God waters everything almost all the time.
But here in Rome, God is busy elsewhere
(perhaps across the Tiber in the Pope’s office).

But here, I fill the plastic watering can and visit
each pot: the lemon tree, which has grown very pretty
with sweet flowers indeed, tho’ no fruit to sample
for bitter;  the abundant basil with leaves to rub
and sniff for memories; the mint likewise
(perhaps a leaf to chew); the peppers planted
(but not picked, for they will not yet yield a peck)
by Jan Dominik, somewhere off in Slovenia
and the 14th century; and the many other pots
whose plants poets perhaps know—but I do not.                                                                     
                                                                                          Being ignorant
of what graces this rooftop garden at sunset
where gulls circle in their nightly conference, commenting
on tourists who suffered the day’s heat. The noisy conclave
ignores me. They have a better view of the sunset.

Smart enough
to be an engineer.
Handy enough
to work construction.

Yet somehow
dumb as a loaf of bread
for a short moment.

One drill.
Straight through the wall.
A careless mistake.
Violent spark.
Kitchen goes dark.

Luck feels terrifying.

You cheated death.
Somehow
life protects fools.

Glad to know
out of all idiots,
it protected
my idiot.