The Garden Love Forgot to Leave

On a night where I consider falling stars,
I hear the whirr of crickets and tree frogs
knowing it won't be long until the frost
cuts through the fields like a scythe,
grazing the grasses too short,
our barefoot days of summer
only stains and calluses
to be scrubbed clean.

My nostrils tell me
the farmer has been haying
one last time;
the waves of flowers
and wild fodder
sweet with the sun
even after it sets.

I have no need for bales
to remember how good
this withered vegetation will be
in January.  The walls of a barn
warm with animals who chew
on the cud of all that is lost.

On this night when the day turned under
and exposed itself,
blushing pink,
and then opened up
into the seeds of all light,

I ache to brush back the curtain
of all joy and look out the window
into the garden where love
forgot to leave.

The Next Generation

This wheel is slowing
to an aching pace,
pounding the life
out of this body. 

The shoulder grinds
and the skin loosens
around the mouth
and eyes.

Labor and the chores of living
satisfy those of us who work.
We find the value
in the ways we spend
a moment with our hands
dirty from peeling a mango
or bright green parsley
to the eyes that nearly close
while writing a poem
at the end of the day.

These perpetual thoughts
are a trance of the busy mind.
The mystery of the body
satisfying.

The next generation delights
in the slow torture of spaces
and less time. 

I close my eyes
and rest in this solitary
and silent place. 
Only the crickets
and the sound of passing trucks
on Rt. 9

Rumble on into the unknown
and you will find the strangers
you thought you knew
as children.

l

New School Shoes

On the first day of fall classes
students stumble drenched
and drunk from anxiousness

huddled to their binders and books,
an expensive coffee in their hand,
they mumble and ask for assurance
like they are crawling out of Plato's cave.

I shiver and shift in my new school shoes
wondering if they have been overcome
by the deception that slinks around
in the backrooms of powerful places,
or if they have just forgotten
their manners.

Perhaps it might not be worth the ache
in these shoulders and neck
after carrying the load of intelligent conversation
and my own overfull backpack
for so long. 

A young man sniffles,
startles me,
tucks in his shirt,
and asks the way to the restroom
and the code to the door.

I wait for the moment to pass,
write something down he might remember,
and pray for the wisdom
to wait and see.

Mowing the Grass on Labor Day 2018

Just like Minnesota in August,
I am hunched and pushing
the electric mower
while sweat and ache
flow through the prarie
of my body.

The crows perch above me,
black angels
in the fading maples,
cawing and laughing
at my toil.

I miss my father again today
and remember all these miles of walking
behind a machine
and the ways he taught me
to do this chore,
first for old Mrs. Bauma
when I was in the 6th grade,
and then at the farm on Saturdays,
and now, without the smell of gas and oil,
yoked to the green of Vermont.

What I would give
to have him teach me again
how to change the oil,
sharpen my kitchen knives,
put away my tools in their proper places,
wash the sink after dishes,
make my bed just like they did in the Navy,
and remind me how to tighten the bolts
clockwise on the wheels of my car.

Just one more time,
on a hot and muggy day like today,
to watch him squeeze the last drops
from a bottle of beer,
smirking with his eyes bright
and shirt stained with the work
of just mowing.