Sunday, May 31, 2020
WATER RUNS
THE SHINE
Saturday, May 30, 2020
PLAIN JANE
SILENCE
Friday, May 29, 2020
NOVEMBER: WESTERN NEBRASKA
Out here, wide sky.
All night the stars
and wind talking
their small talk. All
day the mystery
of their silence.
AUTUMN COMES
Autumn comes
like the sky of birds
heading south.
The long wings
of sandhill cranes
leave brief shadow.
The turn towards
winter marks
a line you cross,
or don't. Go
ahead, say it:
life goes on.
Thursday, May 28, 2020
SENTINEL CROWS
BLESSED BY BIRDS
Blessed by birds
and morning,
by the light,
the retreat of
night. The world
is lovely
once again,
the day bright
and forgiving.
We walk out
into the
uselessness
of beauty,
yes, yes, oh,
yes, and beauty
will have its
way with us.
Wednesday, May 27, 2020
FROM BEYOND
Somewhere
from beyond
the scrawl
of code
on dirt and
grass. Lines
which, if
I could read
them, would
say what
meaning is
or isn't.
HEY, PASTOR
Tuesday, May 26, 2020
WHAT DOES IT MEAN
WHAT IS BLUE?
What is blue?
The sky, all
the way to
its dark edge.
The cast of
water blown
in hard wind.
The promise
silence makes
as another
sun comes up
or starts to set.
Monday, May 25, 2020
A FAR RIDGE
THE OLD MAN IN BOMBAY BEACH
How sad you must be
to live out your life
along the Salton
Sea, to eat the dust
of loneliness, and
then to eat some more.
I'm not saying you
have chosen badly,
though clearly it was
the last choice to make,
here where the wind takes
everything and hope
is a tattered flag.
Sunday, May 24, 2020
YES, THERE ARE
EVERYTHING ELSE
What is reflected
on one side is
seen on the other.
What is out there
is thereby in here.
You would know that
if you believed
this slanted light.
Anything else
is only
approximate.
Saturday, May 23, 2020
THE EARTH STRETCHES
The earth stretches
into morning mist.
Happiness is not the exact
word, but it's close.
So says the red-tail hawk.
So says the dove.
HAVING MUSIC
HAVING MUSIC
for Doug, who plays it with me
It is that
the beat is
there, even
as the air
waits for it.
Trust we land
on it, a
single note
between us.
They listen.
Even as
they hold their
breaths waiting
here it comes
again. It
enfolds them,
and us, and
won't let go,
that moment
when music's
the only
thing we need.
Friday, May 22, 2020
AT THE EDGE
At the edge out there where
no star has yet been blown
there is no time, no light,
no weight of atoms.
There is no coiling
of imagination, only
the bliss of nothingness.
What was is blank still
and what will be is
even farther off.
We might be here, but
that's where we're headed,
out to where it ends, where
it all begins again.
SOMETIMES
Sometimes
what we write
is not what
we want to.
Sometimes
it's just the best
we can do,
given the
difficulty
of saying
anything
at all.
Thursday, May 21, 2020
SCARS
Scars the color
of red-tail
where the trees
have broken.
As prayers do,
as hope does,
all these things
fly to heaven.
THE LANGUAGE I UNDERSTAND
The language
I understand
is a growl
which needs no
subjunctive,
no future
pluperfect,
no tense past
or progressive,
only the Hear me,
Hear me syntax
of this moment.
Wednesday, May 20, 2020
AUTUMN COMES
Egrets in
the river.
Ducks. The sun.
Autumn comes--
in the trees,
in the fields,
in our hearts.
What we have
here, now, is
the first part
of dying.
THE EARTH
The earth doesn't care
if you believe
in climate change.
It doesn't care
if you resist,
or if you don't.
This is a system
which grinds
exceedingly fine.
Even as it flies
towards the last,
great reckoning
it grinds
exceedingly fine
and doesn't care.
Tuesday, May 19, 2020
SOME NEED
Some need the ocean,
some a lake. I need
green fields, the wind
in the grasses,
a small creek pushing
through, a great blue
heron turning above,
the sound of distant
cranes to break my heart.
ALL THESE DAYS
All these days
may have been
sucked husks of
emptiness,
yet didn't I
see what I saw
and didn't I
try to say it?
Monday, May 18, 2020
EVEN THE SMALL
Even the small
dark birds
are lovely,
the grace of light
which feathers them,
the way they
can make me
lift my eyes.
IF NOT FOR STARS
If not for stars
we're then not us.
We come from things
we cannot know
brazed in eternity's
cauldron. We come
from a loss which
has heated, cooled.
We were fired in
the burnt heart of God
when those words were said,
Let there be light.
Sunday, May 17, 2020
WE HAVEN'T
UPON THE WATER
The moon upon
the water is
the only moon
we touch. Touch it,
that you may drown
in its dying,
in the failure
of an ancient
reflected light.
Saturday, May 16, 2020
LEAF
FIRE BURNS
Fire burns
bright or
smolders.
Fuel and
oxygen,
moisture,
the stuff
of stars, of
wood.
The distance
between wanting
and having.
Friday, May 15, 2020
SOME OF THE PEASANTS
Some of the peasants
are peasants,
who keep the great wheels turning.
Some of the peasants
are poets,
who try to give us hope.
Some of the peasants
are sons-a-bitches
who drive the darkness on,
blind to stars above.
THE MATH
Thursday, May 14, 2020
AH
SPEAK, EARTH
Speak, earth,
of comfort
as all things
come apart
around us.
Let us
fly into
entropy
as into
heaven.
Wednesday, May 13, 2020
SMALL BIRDS
WHAT DOES
Tuesday, May 12, 2020
LOVE
SUMMER
Monday, May 11, 2020
SPIDER/POET
EACH ONE
Sunday, May 10, 2020
MONTANA LANDSCAPE
INSTRUCTION
Like a new-
born heaving
for breath, the
poem has
preference for
air. Do not
hold back from
white space and
stanza break.
Let light shine
through the lines.
Saturday, May 09, 2020
BARE TREES
WHEN ONLY
When only
the mountain
remains, you
who were there
might leave it
for me, and
I who was
not will sit
with it -- as
if I could
be a saint.
The mountain
would not have
it any
other way.
Friday, May 08, 2020
LOW LIGHT
Low light this morning,
the darkness holding back hope.
All who have a voice
seem to say, No, no, no.
ON THE FARM AT CURLEW
The leaves of the cottonwoods
will turn their undersides to
light before a storm. They want
nothing but what is. The stones
between the fence and the back
of the machine shed have stayed
solid for a hundred years
and still enclose the summer
sun in their secret star hearts.
They don't know what else to do.
You may leave a place, we say,
you may leave these trees, this heap
of rock, this wind, but the place
does not leave you. It is there
in your own secret heart, where
you speak with, and for, and of
those you have loved, those you have
loved and lost and not forgot.
Thursday, May 07, 2020
A WHOLE CAW
SO, YES, THE
So, yes, the
universe
hums
an E-flat
thousands of
octaves
below what
we can
hear,
a jazz
trumpet or
sax
wailing
the only
note
that matters.
Wednesday, May 06, 2020
OH, CROW
SOMETIME
Sometime
someone
will say
the last
thing that
can be
said. It
won't be
me, for
I still
stand in
the mid-
dle of
the fire;
I still
burn with
asking
what might
bring this
final
silence.
Tuesday, May 05, 2020
LATE APRIL
SPRING IS ONLY
Spring is only
this sauntering.
Its leaf-green
offering is
only a tug at
our wanting more
every day than
the grey memory
of winter's
bitterness.
Come, sun, break
this earth open
like a flower
blossoming, like
a heart bursting
with joy, like
a cliche
in glory. Let us
enter the promise
of spring with
everything
we've got. We've got
nothing to lose.
Monday, May 04, 2020
FUNERAL
I DO NOT
I do not
wish
to repeat
the old
stories,
myths
and such.
I want
to shape
new ones.
Yet
I know
there is
nothing
new
under
the sun,
except
perhaps
some new
configuration.
Sunday, May 03, 2020
THE BLUE SKY
LIFT
Saturday, May 02, 2020
CROSSING TRACKS IN FARM COUNTRY
Such a shine of steel rails
in the vibrating light of air.
Farmers are working these fields
and spring is becoming summer.
BEAUTY
Friday, May 01, 2020
LOVELINESS
SHOULD THE MONK
Should the monk
come down the mountain?
Should he offer
another sermon?
No one listens.
What he says is
nothing new,
like the light of
ancient stars
that is arriving
only now.
No one listens.
In the distance
mountain's darkness,
a farther silence.
