swaddling cloths had soothed active limbs to stillness; in
the drowsing darkness there was not a sound from him
but the steady in, out, in, out, of infant breaths.
All articles filed in poets
september tomatoes
sun-cracked,
bird-pecked,
a patch of gold
most years the neighbor’s cottonwood
is not the first tree to turn toward autumn,
but this week a patch of gold appeared
amid the green
the having had
a parting;
a breaking;
a death;
a memorial.
dreaming of brown ducks
when my heart is restless
i find myself dreaming of brown ducks
and mild-eyed cows
and the cinnamon-colored stripe
between the shoulder blades
of the cotton-tailed rabbits munching clover
on the mountain
was it quiet there on the mountain, Moses,
as the children of Israel held their breath
and you saw the green sweep of the promised land
that you could not enter — and waited for death?
closing ceremonies
four ragged-winged red tail hawks
swoop and circle overhead,
their melancholy cries piercing
the thickening evening air
as the neighbors pull the newest set of fallen branches from the sidewalk.
it really shouldn’t
it really shouldn’t
be this way —
the forgetfulness
the vacillation
the disinterest
the mistrust —
the old versions
i used to keep
the old versions of me
in a box under the bed
until the past editions
grew so numerous
that they began to crowd
the art that no longer
fit into the frames on the wall
a new harmony
there in the dregs of
a New York City summer
he strums his black guitar
then leans into the microphone,
and another voice floats out
of the stillness to join his, still
looking, after all these years,
for america.