After you have driven a lot of farm tractors
and a Cat D-8 so ancient that
the pony motor started with a pull rope
and was so persnickety in cold weather
that you wondered if the diesel
would ever turn over, you’d think
a Bobcat wouldn’t be that exciting.
on sidewalks slick with rotting leaves
we wait for a freight train to pass
don’t oversleep
we will meet in the middle
of an empty room
in a town of hard shadows
windshield glare and drooping vines
I know this face and which dog is mine.
I’m looking out my window,
the one that holds this morning,
its slanting sun, rain storms, snow.
I’m looking out that window
It’s Saturday morning, beyond the glass
Because of,
or perhaps despite
my whisperings,
the African violet thrives.
When I woke this morning,
Continue reading… "To the Light"The large shadow sets off the pallor of his face,
his death the dark companion on his pillow.
Can he have been this beautiful?
Curls clinging to his forehead, the sensuous mouth, straight nose
under his high brow, lashes against his cheek?
I kneel among gilded Virgins and kindly Josephs
ready to receive the body of Christ.
A flat white circle sucks moisture from my mouth,
tongue probes for Jesus in the scraps
of wafer sticking to my palate.
lack of a plan felt like reason enough
to follow half-truths as if they were favors
sandwiches assembled on a plywood scrap
by whoever sat in the passenger seat
In my primary-colored garden
of yeladim where we crayola’d
stick-people portraits of Judah Maccabee
and his muscled bros, Moses crossing
the Sea of Reeds, or Jonah cowering
in the belly of a lumpy, grinning whale,
every Bible story seemed to share
The South Shore Train leaves in the morning.
One night to bear the dorm’s unnatural silence.
This first real snowfall of the season builds slowly.
Outlines etched on bare trees.
You’ve told your first almost real love goodbye.
Nothing’s bound to change. The sky begins to drop.
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All afternoon doing nothing, the jade plant and I.
Don’t say we’re wasting our lives.
Seventeen crows have crossed the window: one trailing a silver
ribbon clenched in a fist.
One with a pane of grey sky where a wingfeather was.
Continue reading… "Meditations"