News and Views from the Empire State
Adirondack August
Cutting wood and carrying water
Mind empty with no effort
Nearly stepped in the spring
I hum all day and no repetition
Wind soughs through fir balsams
Night silence so thick I hear it
Can’t keep things straight
Stars don’t seem to mind
Finally
After roasting chicken
and asparagus on the stones,
they used to hold each other,
the same way the turquoise Moon
holds the storm, gently over
a lean-to on the Cedar River Flow.
Encounter on the Moose River
Startled by steps-
that New Balance
bounce- like Boeing
jets gliding through
the metallic twilight
of a perfect aloneness,
a blue heron hides be
tween two teal wings,
folding and glittering,
holding eyelids near the
fleeting shadows of a
river’s moving stillness.
Adirondack Sunset
on a pillow
of basalm perfume,
she went to sleep. It
was preposterously
elegant and I was drunk.
Nundegao Ridge
On a table monolith
granite veined by quartz
like so many zippers
The children dance
in rock rain reservoirs
Nibble blueberries
Wind-protected
Hare-bells dance
on the ledge below
as hawk bursts out
below us forty feet
to rise on a thermal
Hollow hawk bones
soon “cloud-hidden
whereabouts unknown”
A Definition of Time
On a dead-end block in
a Raquette Lake cabin,
she lays down to drink
alone, not giving a damn
about being married
in the finest old oak casks
or being distinctive with
a hint of perfect smoke
and peat. She just lays there.
While outside her bedroom
window, a slow-rolling plastic
scrapes loose the hard gravel.
Eleventh Mountain
Yellow coffee can lids
nailed to trees through
gray duct tape squares
A worn path through ferns
vanishes in forest duff
Now and then a cut blaze
or rarely rock cairns
The way is not difficult
for those who have
no preferences
My Turn
When it was my turn
to go in
I sat cross-legged
by the ventilator
and told my buddy
goodbye.
I could have cried
but he deserved more
than that. He deserved
what carries no weight.
Time.
Before the lungs fill
with river water,
and the dream oozes
away from fingers like
the slime of drowning
lotus petals
caught between the rocks.
Summit
Wind dances atop
Crane Mountain
blowing sideways
No mosquitoes
fewer deerflies
No sweat beads
bud on face or neck
as the trail dries too
Nature balances
costs and benefits.
Radiation from the Big Bang
Dear Gramps,
we never knew who
pulled the trigger. [Read more…] about Poetry: Radiation from the Big Bang