On the Path

The wooded path between the road and lake
Demands a tending after winter's thaw
I headed out with gloves and axe and saw--
The sort of thing we do for order's sake.

I startled up a grouse spread in the sun
He couldn't fly, the victim of a fox;
He scuttled off to hide in weeds and rocks
And fuse his form to where such work gets done.

And, yes, my face and hands are scarred with age
And bitterness has holed up in my heart

And I'm no stranger to consuming rage
And my thoughts keep me distant and apart

But now I know my death is incomplete:

I still weep for the wounded at my feet.

Credentials

I have watched the river
Work its quiet craft
Through the snow.

I have laid beside two dogs
While they slept their way
Into death.

I have let children
Push me into the lake
Over and over.

I have failed
To save lives
But tried.

I have smoked cigars
Around a campfire
With good men.

I have acquired scars
Some visible, some not
Some earned, some gifts.

I have been awakened
By the splash of bears
Fishing at the dam.

I have spread the ashes
Of those
I love.

I have stayed up all night
In the company
Of poetry and whisky.

I have waited
For people to come home
Who did not.

I have smelled
The scent of apples
In the orchard breeze.

I have almost drowned
And have come very close
To being born.

I have been happily lost
In the woods
And in the bad part of town.

I have seen
The silence fall
Behind a woman's eyes.

I have watched the river
In the summer, too:
working, working at life.

In Memory of Jim Harrison

We bring the argument;
Pulled up from stubborn ash,
Rendered fully into flesh,
Flesh unto flesh,
Solid, warm, burning,
Tearing through the mesh
Refinement sends,
Made up of roots and coal,
Hard and hot;
The thingness of the soul.

To mediate the space:
The tugging trout,
The bear's black
Inquisitive nose,
The scent of cork
Purple with age,
Rosemary, sage,
The clang of kitchen things,
The beating of the owl's
Shadow enshrouded wings,
Pheasant, woodcock,
The robin's eggs,
The girl at the drive-in:
Her fine brown legs

In all this, oddly,
Peace;
The way out;
Or, perhaps, in;
Still presence
In the crazy fires
Of appetite;
All dreams revealed
In each wild part--
The spinning compass
Of the human heart

My Green Lake

My green lake, layered
With blankets of lilies and
Shimmering with birds,
Asks why I launch my
Prayers up toward thin skies
And mourn the silence

Jacob's Children

 

She said it was a shawl of many hues,

Like Joseph’s coat, a gift to be bestowed,

Until between her busy hands emerged

A thing as soft and pure as love can make

When spirits do not do the casting on

And as she teased the needles through the yarn

The green and blue and silver flowed and fused

Down unexpected alleys colors swept

Because we live in disregard of line
The pattern is the pattern we compose

When Joseph wandered off in search of flocks

His brothers watched, and fumed, and then conspired

“Here comes the dreamer” each to other said
So prophecy is done and God revealed

When angels knit, and dreamers go afield

Spring Storm

The rain, like settled sadness,

Beat on the pool for hours

And littered it with branches

And fragments of dead flowers

The pounding palled the rises

And shook the reeds and grass

And shattered the still surface

A dance of broken glass

Although the pond is shallow

It is sufficing deep

To claim a place of silence

Where waters calmly sleep

Three

At the end of a dark night of longing
I saw again: everyone has only three stories
Moving their heart forward

A story of power and justice
Of something done right and against chance

A story of grace and mercy
Of something done for reasons beyond reason

A story of love and compassion
Of something done for another, with another,
By another
Clean of expectations of memory or tribute

Immeasurable, unforgettable,
Relentlessly mocking loneliness,
Selfishness, poverty of spirit,
Giving us today's reason, sufficient,
To push the door open and
To step out
To step out one more day
Into the mystery

Three stories that we live as one:
The Father, Ghost, and Suffering Son