A SMALL BOX OF POEMS

6-19-20

Under a blazing morning star,
a faint glow rises in the east.
From the highest branch,
a winged muezzin calls out over a quiet land.
A new day has arrived, for all,
our wheel of fate whirls.
Every day is a gamble, the house always wins.
Yet awakened by the morning call
an inward smile, siamo qui.

3-22-20

Not enough ventilators exist.
The world turns regardless. Daffodils are ready to bloom.

We can’t find toilet paper and all our subscriptions are digital.
The soil is warming, grass is greening.

Will I taste my ripened tomatoes?
Monarchs and bees are busy at the blooms.

Quick, name your great, great, great grandfather.
Such vanity, all are forgotten.
Days shorten, birds are heading south. Frost is near.

The leaves remain unraked.
First snow falls quietly.

Winter solstice heralds the return of the sun.
The Magi’s gift: there are far fewer of us.
Cold War roaches rejoice and dance.

BEFORE THE FIRST SNOW (2009?)

Tonight I walked the woods
Strolling, contemplative,
Before the first snow.

A milky gibbous moon
Above, I hear softly,
Trees speaking in tongues.

How will it arrive?

Furiously squalling, blinding white
Or mutely, slowly, one by one
Against a sullen grey sky.

What planet can this be?
I don’t know how to walk.
My thin coat, obsolete.

Afterwards an inward smile
How I keep forgetting
Each and every year.

120 YEARS OF MOURNING (EARLY 2000’s)

Where have you gone?
Astonishingly, the mundane has returned.
Breakfast, the electric bill, winter wheat.
How can things remain the same
When they never will.

How can you be gone?
Everywhere, your presence insinuates.
The tides of memory ebb and flow.
Old habits are not forgotten
I still sleep on the same side of the bed.

I live paralyzed
In love with my inert twilight.
After 120 years of mourning
It never ends
It never ends.