POEM - Oak

the sight of felled oak makes me sob
these quartered trunks gray as elephant legs

this wrinkled bark skin that begs touch
that speaks of reconstructed earth

of some great sacrifice for progress sake
or at least something more noble

than just a new gaggle of condos going in ¾
the sight of dying oak makes me weep

the humility of the coppice of common shrubs
is dwarfed by the sadness of cut oak

positioned in final acts of a torturous demise
piled up discarded as dead dead piled upon dead

everything is captured for autopsy later
held fast by the embrace of remembrance

that stores all wisdom in silent counting rings
and the unnerving quiet bravery of graying wood

POEM - Possum

Possum spread like peanut butter
across a bitumen road,
looks towards a rendered light
and with its remaining breath
is still able to envision a world
that is always dark,
where grubs are plentiful,
where trees are always lush and air warm.
where humans are left smeared
in the street with no one
to witness life skittering away
on prehensile feet,
scratching on pavement
avoiding bright light.

POEM - Grass

I am inflorescent grass,
Brought to tenderness, bowing
So gently, made crescent shaped
By the winds of your goodness.

POEM - Gene Therapy

Chemotherapy actually changes a person’s DNA
This explains why a friend’s hair
Is straight, thin and blonde before
The breast cancer diagnosis,
But is thick, brown, curly like an impasto painting afterward.

That our DNA can be changed in midlife
Comforts me somewhat.

Perhaps, it could be used to make me taller,
And look a bit more like George Clooney,
Or croon more like Frank Sinatra.

But there are limits everywhere –
Even to the miracles of altered genes.

POEM - Eating Corn

Whenever I push my spade into the
Fatty folds of brown earth
I feel like a surgeon making an incision.
Fields as dark as a coma await planting,
An open wound that waits to heal.

In July and August,
When foliate scarecrow stalks reach up high
Everything is covered, everything seems healed.

I steadfastly denude the ears of corn,
I dutifully boil them, then christen them in oil.
I dust them with salt for bite.

I know well how to live off scarified things

POEM - Grackle Song

Oil stained Grackle chokes
Out his song because spring is in full motion.
Yellow eyed, he observes the leaves
Which have begun to do their little
Flag-waving dance that they do when they change
From tightly wadded buds to flat, waving palms.
They show off a mania for more sunlight
And the arrival of worms at a respectable,
“Peckable” distance, just below the soil,

Robbin shifts his feet in anticipation
He can just taste the plump snack.

The cornucopia of freshly filled backyard
Feeders awaits Grackle and they sense it!
They cough more than sing, with a voice
That is more croup than croon
There is no mistaking the tone:
Winter will return soon enough.

Today is an Italian aria
And thanksgiving all wrapped up into one!

POEM - I Give You Back

I give you back but not on my own.
I give you back with red rubbed eyes and denying,
With somber questions about what “Good” is,
And this rabid sort of crying.

I give you back as hard as graphite,
I give you back with a splintered faith,
With grizzled love, and blind trust that levitates
Like the glow of your sleeping face.

I give you back from my darkest place.
Back to the Night, my life placed into that dreamless hole,
Though pale yellow starlight offers me nothing
In return when you leave and we reverse roles.

I give you back, here and now, in the spring of love divine
With one more heavy heart than when you first arrived: mine.

POEM - At Even Sky

At even sky
Before moon has loosed
Her laces to run barefoot
Through blue-black night field -
Before the velvet of dark
Drapes a vanquished color over us -
Two languorous trees,
composed, reverent, and still,
sway with the gentle swagger of a compass needle
In quiet repose and pray.