The Middlewesterner

How many earths
would shelter us,

how many suns,
how far off - and

who would we be?

Mud hens or
lumpen clumps

at water's edge?

“Ah, yes,
you will

have words
when you

run out
of numbers.”

*

“See how you do that?
You count 1, 2, 3,
4, 5. And again
1, 2, 3, 4, 5.”

*

“He sits at the bus stop
talking to himself.
His wisdom comes in bunches.

How is he not a poet?”

“What does it
take to wake me?

Two cups of
coffee and

a half stick of
dynamite

might.”

*

“My broken notion of success -
happiness even in silence.”

*

“I turn another
corner and cannot

remember
what I thought.”

Is there an edge
to darkness?
Is there no end

to sorrow?

Heavy with sadness,
the sky.

No stars overhead.

First snow.
Sun-snuffed
November.

The chill
a great
reminder.

The blazes of orange -
too many

hunters drinking beer.

Deer hunters
break open

the day,
sadness

in what
they do.

“You want more than this?
Increase your stipend?”

*

“Barber
or poet?

Which do you
need more?”

*

“Some mornings,
slow.

Some mornings,
not so

fast.”

“Don't put more
than three

on a page.
The paper

cannot
bear it.”

*

"Some lines are crooked.
You cannot fix them,

cannot let them go.”

*

"I was in
another place

all the way
here.”

Dim sun.
Grey dome.

Rim of the world.
I'm still alone.

Sun? The fog
coming undone?

The day
broken to
brightness?

A lightness
of being?

All the world
that fell away
comes to.

Cross the river
into an open sky?

Cross the distance
into another day?

Cross sorrow
to solace?

We cannot know
what we cannot know.

Does that dead
raccoon have a God,
does the dead squirrel?

Isn't star dust all
we can hope to be?

Power poles
marching blinding through the fog,
going somewhere,

one supposes.

“On Sunday
Jesus
walks on water.

On Monday
the church
is empty.”

*

“The poem is
full and still

you leave out
so much.”

*

"Let's pretend
we are not

old men.
Let's sing

like we used to.”

“Pay attention -
the very air

will tell you
where you are.”

*

“Sometimes
the line is blurred and

sometimes
I can't find my glasses.”

*

“Some days, nothing.
Some days, even less.”

Crow's nest in high wind,
empty as the bare tree.

Wind on the water -
the geese stay low.

Bare tree.
Snow on the mountain.

Time to go home.

Same moon.
Different day.

Still life
with maple.

Chunk of moon in blue sky.
Red leaves of the maple.

I feel at home here.

“Nothing to say?
So say it.

That's the poet's
art, pursuing

that which eludes us.”

*

“Music is the
language

poets would use
if they could

speak without
language.”

*

“Something in the way my mouth
mushes language makes it sing.”

“If you would be a poet, em-
brace the wildness of your heart.”

*

“We reassure ourselves
we are masters

of the universe;
then the universe

informs us otherwise.”

*

“If you
cannot

not, you
can.”