Bright Lights

from what we cannot hold the stars are made
—W.S. Merwin, Youth—

The stars are wilted and wan
and the Milky Way nostalgia,
unable to compete
with city razzle-dazzle.

I wonder
where radiance hides.
Is it still pulsing away
at the rim of our whirling blue world,
at the edge of sanity,
perhaps afraid to
signal us
that the gods cannot get through,
that we’re alone,
all alone
in our fine and brutal incandescence?

I Walk in the Neighborhood

through gates of moonbeam and shadow
trampling unseen graveyards.

Is that the wailing of ghosts
I almost hear,
the bonedry cries of
vanquished nations
at the edge of
everything unholy?

I can’t see through moondim reverie
into yesterday’s unholiness,
but somehow I know
I’m not alone in the shadow
of this almost silent boneyard village.

My Summer Vacation

Is today the day I rise above
the wind to a windless forever?

They say the shadow of forever
is long and dark and incurable.

Maybe I’ll wise up before I float above
autumn blaze maple and honey locust

and the tattered gray clouds
that decline to come when I call.

Maybe I’ll learn to stay put, anchored
to the mossy red brick of my familiar

patio, consort with chipmunk and
chickadee, thrive in the shade of
my sugarberry tree.

Twilight Song

In the soft amber shadow
katydids and crickets sing
farewell to light.

Or maybe they mean to summon
ancient gods to save
them from night.

Or is it insect love—
time to woo the ladies,
a final dance,
a tryst in the grass?

Now the night’s opaque,
and there’s a hum, certain and calm
as the hard silent sleep of granite and iron,
and I think it’s time to honor creatures
kind enough
to sing for me.

I applaud their nameless song,
its veiled composer.
Let their song be forever
the song of wind and grass,
iron and granite and falling light.

No Escape

Light rises
into windsong and laughter
and across the street
children swat a ball
and laugh and run.

Once I was a child
of laughter and light,
unfraught days
and nights of lilac and honeysuckle.

Trees reach up and out
perhaps in thankfulness.
Do they remember their
saplinghood,
their struggle for light?

A slim blond child skips by,
ponytail bouncing.
I want her to celebrate.
I want her to understand:

Life is incurable.

Warning

step down

pretty angel

from the autumn sky

winter is coming

and you will freeze

in your gossamer gown

dress for snow and ice

death rides

in gray days

and heavy clouds

though you are

beautiful in

pink and rose

and always

fetching

you will die

in the cold

it will be ugly

no matter

how lovely

your smile

Angels and Other Considerations

...If angels lodge inside
us, they feed on details, then retreat into hiding.
— Lance Larsen, Santiago, Pluperfect—

Angels aren’t picky.
Content to live in fat and bone
muscle and viscera,
they ward off dragon and slave and bully.
They hide in my indifference.

I don’t know why
this leafy green village is
greener than ever this summer,
so many dollars away from sprouting potatoes and moldy cabbages,
rats and lice and other perils of the poor.

I sing to the angels behind my breastbone
in my gut
lurking in my loneliness
or wherever they chance to land
and I sing to the angels in my leafy green village
in exile from indecent slums.

Somewhere angels screech hosannas to misery.
Somewhere angels pray loudly to money and joy.
Somewhere angels are silent and dangerous.

Why, the child asks, is the sky blue? Why do things die?
And talk about wave lengths and cycles of birth and death
leaves her cold
and leaves me cold
Why?
Why?
she asks.

And the angels are silent and dangerous.

My Summer Vacation

Is today the day to rise above
the wind to a windless forever?

They say the shadow of forever
is long and dark and incurable.

Maybe I’ll wise up before I float above
autumn blaze maple and honey locust

and the tattered gray clouds
that decline to come when I call.

Maybe I’ll stay put, anchored to
the mossy red brick of my familiar

patio, consort with chipmunk and
chickadee, thrive in the tender
shade of the sugarberry tree.

Guilty

I’m guilty
The verdict is final and binding.

On rainy days I listen to Brahms.
The music laughs. Then it weeps.

I write my name in the mud
by the pond. It drowns.

Just out of reach, a bottle-blue
dragonfly slides by. I flinch.

I step down hard on a small green frog.

Another Summer Day

I wonder about a summer day like this—cool and crystal and green.
I want to live in it forever.
I want to sit forever in the cool green shade of the honey locust.

(I can’t imagine eternity.
Can you?)

I’ve grown old,
older than the honey locust,
older than all the trees seen from this cool green shadow.
The trees are strong. They’re not forever.

I remember a cool summer day maybe forty-five years ago.
I sat with my lovely young wife on our front porch.
I said, “Maybe this will last forever.”

It has
and it hasn’t.

This is another summer day.