The importance of things my father said I might be asked To speak at his funeral. I’ll structure the sentences to soften The brutal impact remembered From a question he asked once About my grandfather that screamed “Why is he so stupid?“ Grandpa liked fishing Out by the bridge pylons. My father ran out things […]
My reason for laying beside you and smelling like beer When you finish reading this I want you to be able to paint The sky I saw when I walked out To the garbage bin at dusk. Look up past the spring buds Blurring the kinky ends of the ginko To the ribbon of sky, upended by […]
..the unwieldy elephant,/ To make them mirth, used all his might, and wreathed/ His lithe proboscis… John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book IV We elephants are images of humility, as when we/undertake our melancholy migrations to die. Dan Chiasson, The Elephant
When I write a poem I try to keep the words as simple and true as I can manage. The temptation to show-off with language is always there, and the temptation to force meaning will make me pause and doubt the words. I know that the music is in the plainsong of language and that […]
My son at 6 at the end of the weekend Your arm drapes along my whole side From my shoulder to my hip to my ankle Where your finger circles the knob Of my joint firmly. I can feel the warm press Of your palm, the weight of your elbow Against the worn fleece of […]
Early Winter Morning When I am ready to bury you I want the weather to cooperate. That would be a sign of god’s grace. I don’t want to be standing by the open grave In a driving rain, The umbrella fluttering querulously overhead; Or staring at the crystals of a deep frost Bound to the irregular […]
A’s Communion Through him With him In him In the unity of the holy spirit Unto the hour of death, And the echo of a long valley For ever and ever. Crepe paper lightens my hand The flutter comes from the breath Of the word One supplication in this prayer To feel him A postcard From a […]
T’s communion When I go to communion hold my hand. The change in the air, The rustle of the heavy clothes, The scuff of shoes against the polished slate, The solitary cough, The clap of the wood boards against metal stays, The mumuring up ahead, The swollen rotation of the bellows, The stillness of the lift, […]
The impulse in song What wants to sing, to thresh the air with sound and watch the chaff rise, lift, grab, elevate, erupt Into a line of song that makes me want to swing my legs to and fro, snap my fingers like this? The ball of my foot pushes on the wood floor so I can see […]