December, shyly

December 9, 2012

December, shyly

The evening clouds,

gray and heavy-hanging, begin,

slowly, to shiver down

in white, disparate pieces:

sleepy; star-tangled.

The sky drifts down towards earth,

dry as dust, dry as bones,

but time drifts across the ground,

through the empty, wind-limbed streets

of the city, settling.

The shadow of our night bus merges

and emerges, steadily passing through

the faint yellow pools of light

held, suspended, by the streetlamps. 

Somewhere in the distance, the bus driver

chats strangely with no one in particular. 

The light snow whispers to itself as it falls.

The blackbirds call to one another,

if only to hear their own voices shudder
through the quiet air.

I want to wake up early with you

April 10, 2012

I want to wake up early with you and walk through the morning village

Dew like silver on the black bridge,

a silent fog on the water, a canopy

softening bare silhouettes along the canal.

The sky, blue-grey,

still sleeping in a warm bed, in a room

where the cold clings to the curtains and walls,

a house with a dark, creaking floor,

the air heavy from a long winter’s night.

Four birds in the distance,

barely separate,

move through the morning and

                                             drift away.

Seventeen dreaming

January 10, 2012

Seventeen dreaming

I love

driving at night

on the highway

when no one else is around

and it’s so quiet

that I can hear

everything. 

I can feel

the quiet compression

of the pedals

under my feet,

and the road reaches

and reaches and reaches,

as if stretching tight limbs,

white parallel lines

yawning on

forever. 

The needle

on the speedometer

glides up

to sixty miles per hour,

and hovers:

a small, slender,

silent bird. 

The world ahead of me

breathes

in the darkness,

a warm lake of night sky

that never ends.

garden snails

May 21, 2011

garden snails

three of the creatures slowly explore my hand

while I crouch in the dirt

to take a break from weeding.

their small bodies are translucent

and wet

across my thick palm,

over each of my fingers,

cracked dry and desperate

with evaporated mud.

one has a shell of swirled amber,

a crystalline fragment

of some heavenly design:

tiny,

and perfect. 

curious little things,

content to make maps

of the landscape of my skin,

sometimes turning back

in methodical circles

to make sure each crease is accurate,

each wrinkle precise. 

their smooth bellies cool my hand,

which still burns from the friction

of careful, violent tugs

on stems and roots.

I look up for a moment:

the green earth glistens

with sunlight and the work

of a thousand garden snails. 

three of the creatures slowly explore my hand

while I crouch in the dirt

to take a break from weeding.

and oh,

how my fingers tremble.

Because I'm not careful

April 30, 2011

Because I’m not careful

i.

I used to sit and wonder why

the sensitive shadows of the leaves

didn’t correspond to the watery movements

of my hands.

I would have to hide my tapping fingers

because to him, they meant impatience

instead of piano concertos. 

But I picked up these burdens

as if they were those cold, beautiful

Venetian streets

in February. 

ii.

The blackbirds patrol the edge of Lake Ontario.

They navigate the air currents like whitewater rapids,

shuddering against the wind the way you might have,

holding someone’s hand

and walking with her script in your pocket.

indian-ocean blue

November 17, 2010

indian-ocean blue

i remember one time when we

walked through that abandoned

apple orchard, hand in hand.  it must

have been late summer or early fall

because there were still blossoms

on the branches, pink and soft

as the birdsong and your newspaper poetry. 

we came upon the apples, cold and

hard and bright – peridot; it didn’t matter

that they still had weeks to ripen, because

our rosebud mouths opened, ate them,

and laughed.  we thought

that the clouds gathering were only doves

coming to nest in the sky until it began

to thunder, but even then our eyes

like sunflowers turned to search

for some remaining trace of light

as we held each other close. 

yesterday, we didn’t walk through

apple trees, but through city streets,

and you whispered that you missed

the songbirds because they had all become

pigeons.  our sad talk is of statistics,

not of verse, and our voices fight the steel

and concrete clanging.  construction scaffolds

and littered cigarettes are all we know

of beauty. other people pass on the sidewalk,

keeping their faces down, rushing

off to their challenging jobs and busy

lives.  the rain streaks down our dirty

gray windows, and yet we pull

out those old, perennial smiles and think

about the days when the sky was still

that indian-ocean blue;

we remember, we hope,

and we hold each other close.

even-ing musing

November 21, 2009

even-ing musing

i.

I felt like snow today.

the weather disagreed, and I inquired the reason.

I’m not sad enough, it confided.

but why do you have to be sad to feel like snow?

that’s just the way it is, replied the weather.

that’s how it works.

funny.

I felt like snow, but I wasn't sad at all.

ii.

it makes me smile,

this time,

the even-ing of the day,

when the clarity of the sky

and the silhouette trees

make it look like it could be sunrise,

but it’s not.

           

like something you meant to say,

or words on the tip of your tongue:

it’s the self-same phenomenon.

           

iii.

I often long

to go out

and chase the moon. 

           

maybe,

this time,

if I weave together

enough cross-hatched

shooting stars,

I can toss a celestial net

into the darkness

and keep for myself

this feeling of twilight.

           

maybe I’ll try it again
          tomorrow. 

white

September 3, 2008

white

there's an early snow,
and the evening shivers
as lightning's child wanders

through an autumn wood:

hush.

listen for the sound.

the sky whispers
a winter song.

a soft, clear

snowfall

from each

bare branch.