| Eye to Eye
I'm slipping this boot-legged session in -- along
with the greying snow / the scenes of civilizations
gussied up -- and -- at their centers -- decibels --
fabrics sold by weight or weave
or coded numbers -- though who could be sure
we thought -- not even we of summertimes
/ of cemetery slopes spooks owned --until
the northside fathers moved them out
for market bargains -- assuming their desires --
no less than ours -- by so much understated --
agreed to new-fangled portables / to the lemon
and rainbow ices kids licked as if forever --
without a song as yet -- and only the sounds
of neighbors practicing on targets --
raising their panes to ask the little breezes in. But
what's there to start -- you ask -- when
Donnie gets out / Artie back from publicly ordered
sheltering -- to undertake or prove -- by
the light at Axel's Bight or at Mulrooney's --
the scored and matching surfaces --
underinscribed may be -- as prayer-wheels were
and offerings -- except for these dead
I think -- singing their1890s aires in Paradise.
Then it's two decades here -- feeling
the woods' light -- thinking of this child you held --
grown now in Massachusetts -- scheduled
next week for Ashquelon Jerusalem Massada --
for corners and walls where civilizations
weep or celebrate -- of pictures she'll have to share --
of two vacationing -- and this one of you --
from which she might remember -- imagining
a grandfather's cupped hand -- lifting her
eye to eye -- toward so many birthdays afterwards --
and filling her own turned palms with light
as she remembers -- sensing the rhythm / play --
refined by even the least accomplishments --
and cheered by all of it -- even by wicks
I must imagine brightening -- or by the fingers
she blows over -- in lieu of birthday candles --
by even these woods this first full week
of real summer -- these lilacs / lilies / phlox --
sequencing hues and D-Day thundering --
still -- in a new century.
Chemistries 1
So much in mind -- whether twilit balms
or martyrdoms -- for children
to believe in -- schooled in yard-sports
/ in leaps of faith
or summer strangeness in new places --
/ in sides worth thinking through --
if only to unobstructed light / working
chemistries / purifications clarified --
squeezing the available news
into new lenses
/ into the scrapbook
artist's
parody of
history.
I've only this porch and this day's wait --
and this glass-topped table
where the coffee's cooled -- two lenses
/ three -- to find
these back-lit silhouetted crows --
squatting
on ash and walnut limbs -- waiting
I suppose -- as even
the lilies wait -- as dragonflies must --
hairies and hummies
wait -- for apostrophes it might
take days to realize --
while appetite / attraction
teach an eye
( thank God ) how joy
and
bright must
compensate.
Maybe we'll walk come Saturday -- through
yellow-green grass
/ through woods again -- where
we have walked
and wished / have let the cardinal
puff herself
among spring-woods' accommodations --
where summer
begins -- emphatically -- and
the hairy climbs --
confused -- to the post below
her old man at the feeder --
taking this seed shared
beak to beak --
until she's found
the skills to
master it.
Chemistries 2
These birds we know will not give up themselves.
And June we know
will bring out student pilots and balloonists --
as if the roses make it so
/ or the lamb's ear and ringing ivy
nut-hatch and hummy
find attractive -- or this neighbor now --
tugging her threesome
down the stone road in their wagon --
with mail to see about --
while even the dead we think persist --
the coffee dropping
from mustaches -- scoring routes
and miles
of terrain / the militias
arguing enigmatic
victories --
even as we -- scoouting the woods light
for photographs
we might have thought impossible --
put off
by engulfing shade -- but drawn no less --
here suddenly
then gone -- just as some things
were -- the ways
a clock say -- that hasn't run
in seasons --
adds its contrapuntal note
then stops -- almost
before it's noticed --
leaving
the silence then
/ the
stillness
trying on exhuberance -- with so much
to amplify / ask in
and sweeten as accountings -- so much
in mind let's say -- in the crowding
/ emptying afternoons and summer twilights --
invented on long walks home --
in rivers of light -- inspiring these crows
/ this one tonight -- into
the late blue grey despite the forecasts --
even as sparse stars
weave / as boomers hold off
and heads-of-state
digress -- bending the matters
/ minds to all
the ancient humors -- and
sending
the last squads out
/ to
disinfect old
surfaces.
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