Snow (finally)
Sunday, January 7, 2024
Snow (finally)
Sunday, March 19, 2023
In Search of the Moon
In Search of the Moon (for my grandson, Otto Zane Carlson, born 3/18/2023)
We waited patiently,
made silent prayers and outrageous offerings
into the mouths of this slice of chaos.
Even now, we urgently want you to breathe in deeply, unafraid
laugh loudly, play endlessly in daisy-filled fields,
explore murky ponds and wonder between the lines of stories--
the way that boys do.
Your parents certainly will teach you what it is to be loved by the way
they look each other in the eye and at you.
Your uncles will hold you in their arms, murmur manly advice
about pocketknives, good farm food, Vermont style, music,
and, of course, will embrace you with all their hearts
whenever they greet you
for the rest of their generous lives.
They won’t be able to help themselves.
I suspect it will be your sister,
the girl you met today only hours after your birth,
who will pledge to carry your collective dreams
to the alter of the night sky
in search of the mysteries of the moon.
This common orb of delight and fiction as it waxes and wanes
reflecting the power of the sun,
will bind you to each other with silvery stitches
no matter where you are.
Heaven knows the promises you made to find your way to us
this time in a body immersed in infinite ancient memories
like a package hidden in the seam of a beggar’s tattered coat.
Sunday, May 22, 2022
June 1
to the summons of air
plush with rain like tropical wings,
fluttering and trapped
near the earth.
Cinnamon and narrow as a tardy boy
slipping into his seat unnoticed
I catch sight of my brother,
drifting spirit
at the edge of white oaks
near the old International.
It is nearly a year
since he planted his last gardens
at the farm where we all put our hands
in the dirt. Peas, beans, and purple eggplant.
Hot peppers and beets. Clockwork of the season
our parents taught us to love.
That memorial day, even he was unaware,
Flummoxed.
Saturday, May 21, 2022
Fever Dream
After years of masking against the invisible enemy
the cough and fever consume me,
even my voice is gone
forcing me to bed.
It was the teenager,
fearless and determined,
who brought it home
just like a brutish friend
at midnight, fully eclipsed
under cover of purple gypsy music
or hippy long locks wailing
at the blood moon.
I gnash my mind
enrobed in weakened pride
that looks like silent meditation
while I wait in my sweltering sheets
for the rattling congestion
to collide
with morning tea.
I shuffle,
take fever-breaking tablets,
nurse warm liquids
into my raw throat.
In my broken dreams
I drive my first car, grey
on dusty backroads
in Minnesota
frantically looking for my parents
and my dead brother.
There is no forgiveness
for being this kind of human.