To have loved a cat.
Amongst my accomplishments this ranks highly.
So, I gave freely. Understanding the rewards might be fleeting.
Yet I loved whole. True.
The entire monty.
And there i paws
A cat hair in my eye on lookout for every stray
Who happens by

Seeking....



Nor, is it folly, to have served their whims upon a silver platter, when rewarded only by their regal indifference. For, there comes a time when you feel a bit down, or you are sad, and lo, her catness rubs your leg, or turns her head upside down and let's you rub her belly.
And the ultimate when on a dark gloomy night she consents to the rare kiss on your lips. And rubs her side along yours. Softly

I live on a small (25 sq. mile) island, accessible only by ferry.

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“For we are dear to the immortal gods,
Living here, in the sea that rolls forever,
Distant from other lands and other men”

—Homer, the Odyssey (translated by Robert Fitzgerald)

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sea air inoculates the slowing breath-taking ferried voyager,
our landed cares felled, fall into a wake, trailing, sunk & submerged,
a ferry’s ramp contact-clangs, belling a “Here, Here!” alters our mien,
the softening airy enveloping, fragrantly, a greeting of immortal gods

no matter that we can vision-easy the neighboring isles, with
their trafficked-light busyness, the to and fro of mainland life,
bustle necessity of hustle, our riveted river moat cancels out
imposing surround sounds, our untucked flavor, floating free

wafting perfume of quiet inlet, creek and harbour, touch us safely,
alternating currents of gentle breeze, stiffer sailing winds, gusts,
bending us, these reminders, we humans too, creatures of elementals,
water, sun, forest, sand, animals, singular upon co-hosted menagerie

the brackish water, where fresh + marine waters mix, live + die,
reflecting our pooling diversity, so few of us born here, yet so many,
adopt and adapt the isle’s peculiarities, endearing all without any
distinction, we blessed together by Immortal Gods to shelter together,

by, from, the seas that roll us into one peaceful island, nearly, dearly,

and now departed

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Shell Beach,
Shelter Island
August 2021

If at the end we become strangers, one last time
and collapse in on ourselves like a dying star.
Try to remember, how the light from morning
once stretched out over a sky, to settle in on our crowns.
A fleeting city, a monument to ghosts and moments,
paused to anoint us.  It allowed us to be,
who we had dreamt we could be
when we used to play in front of a mirror.
I try to imagine if day never ended,
and had the light not burned itself out
could we have remained in a city of memories?
And yet, even as we return to our darkness
I am aware of the horizon surrounding everything,
which has not yet disappeared.

I open my eyes to let you go
And hold on a moment longer
Morning, and its forceful breath
Shakes the dangling blossom off the tree.
I remember you once saying
Beauty always arrives too soon,
And that's precisely the right time.

If I dream of inaction …
I stand in that time before time
Where all possibility lays over
A field of bristling deep white
And all the words that are unwritten
Outreach every star ever stitched.
Sometimes, I picture in absence
All things waiting to be connected
To one continuous present.
Where those not yet born
And those who have lived
Exist together side by side.
Were I then to write of action
I would be drawn by narrow pleasure
Into a slow but diminishing realm.

Do I shake myself from sleep? Awake,
I see you there, or do I dream
of that swift peck swooping in
as you pack a sandwich, and shoo me out a door:
'Mustn't be late for school!'
The triteness of finality still frames you,
standing once more on the threshold
altogether, like something meant to last.