It was every bit a part of her as her fingers or her voice
(That being an instrument mostly unused now),
And it didn’t matter that she might be wearing stripes or checks,
Not that she spent a great deal of time fiddling with her clothes,
Preening herself in the mirror like some dried-up peacock,
Not that she’d done so at any stage of her life,
As that was for the vain:
Young girls justly so, or faded prom queens who,
Despite all evidence to the contrary,
Refused to accept the primacy of decay.

It’s not like I was never young, you know she would demur,
And, in fact, she had played along-- she’d gone to the dances,
Gossiped at the sleep-overs, tried her hardest to work up enthusiasm
During the pep rallies before the games against Ridgway or St. Mary’s,
Even allowing herself to be courted by a shy, gentle offensive tackle
Later lost in Korea, forgotten boy in a forgotten war,
But there was always something not quite right,
A certain air of fragility and impermanence,
(Even though the presence of the Montmorenci Mills,
Hulking solidity of brick and mortar and yelping machinery,
Cradled the town in its enduring embrace
And beyond town, endless hills encumbered with spruce and pine
So thick the forest floor never saw so much as a glimpse of daylight
Between December and mid-March)
A curious buzzing, droning and mosquito-like,
Saying in a persistent whisper Surely this can’t be all there is;
There must be something true, something fine,
Something enduring to hang one’s dreams upon.

She was right, certainly, on the larger point;
The mill closed, thrusting the town into a collective limbo
Where they couldn’t divorce themselves from a reality
Which no longer existed, and, as the years rolled diffidently onward,
Morphed into something that never truly was
(Meanwhile the woods, inexorable as some ancient, half-blind old bear,
Digesting the odd abandoned hunting camp or hobo’s lean-to,
Seemed to creep farther toward the main roads each year),
And each year brought fewer inquiries
As to her availability and amenability
Until her solitude was final, impenetrable;
Indeed, she never found reason to look back upon on those days
Where she could have been half of something,
Save for the several occasions when (for no reason she could fathom,
Which in itself perplexed her to no end)
She thought back to the time they visited the fortune teller
Who had a tent, the opening of which she watched nervous, hawklike
At the county fair over in Clearfield,
And the mystic had taken one look at her hand,
Tracing the palm mournfully
And said, in a voice shackled in an unspeakable sadness,
*Poor little thing, you’ll never see forty, I’m afraid.
I’ve never seen a lifeline that short.

if you were a poem,
you would be a poem about a plane
grounded,,
wanting to be in the sky,
wishing, waiting, willing
knowing
that someday you'll be flying high

and if I were a poem
i would be a poem about a bird
drifting,,
dreaming of the land
wishing, waiting, willing
wary
and unsure of where I stand

but you are not a poem
and to be honest, neither am I
for I am just a poet
but someday
we will fly**

((and even though, we are not the same
my emotions drift like sand
i find my peace close to you
my heart safe within your hand))

Last night
I lifted my head
to the sky
seemingly
not so far away
like my dog on the porch
listening
to the songs of the frogs
singing up a storm
I asked her, sweet mutt
of mine to interpret
their words
and she looked at me
as if to say
just listen my friend
they sing of the wind
and the pines
the ocean
that great saltwater dish
where we were born
and the coming
of a great tide
and how we should be
more kind
to our Mother
the Earth tomorrow
on her Birthday
they sing instructions
and warnings
of obituaries heard
in a thunderous warming
then she sighed
and closed her eyes
thumping her tail
in time with the chorous
as the moon
raised his great blind eye
up over the forest.

Silence
I know her
like the back
of my hand
an eyebrow
under a cross
of ashes
the cloud
I followed
for so long
now I listen
on lone walks
for the song
of stones
beneath the creek
I once called
home sometime
so long ago
I can't remember
why I ever listened
to her at all.

with moonlight, he travels mostly
at night, past snoring hikers and embers
of fires that cooked their food, kept darkness
at bay, and heard what they had to say

if the coals could only speak, perhaps
he would find the right circle of stones,
a black heap of carbon that once glowed
red and gold, and her tale would be told

at least he would know the last words
she spoke in this wilderness--whether she
chose to vanish into the deep wood, fodder
for the scavengers

or was the prey of evil men,
who lurk at every turn--in bustling city
and quiet forest as well--vipers who strike
without warning, without curse or cause

when the moon's light wanes, he moves yet
in darkness, feeling his way, a nocturnal detective,
hoping to find what the others have given up
for lost and registered among the dead:

sign or scent of her--black coals or white bones,
a piece of tattered clothing, the canvas backpack
with her name, the hiking boots he laced for her
which left tracks he forever yearns to find...

Some nights I shade
my eyes
from dark dreams
like a broken hawk's wing
stuck in the hot tar
of a back country road
when sleep seems
like a long ways to go
in a bad war
and desire and desire
and desire like a fire
in my bones
won't leave me alone.

Time is a witness
to the mark of the moth
in my hair, and I swear
the nights are getting longer

I keep putting it off
hoping I would discover
a star no one knew was there

and I can only wonder why
the bluebirds die
on the power lines singing

if god had a heart
he'd take me instead
and put a thirty ought six
straight through my chest

just for believing
that somewhere there's a nest
with my name on it.

A man without
scars is like a river
without water
like a room without
a window
or a son to carry on
the name
and a man without
a woman
is a man without woe
or sand or a heart
to be broken
a man
who is dreaming only
of a tractor
and wide open
fields with no hay
to be mown.