Crescent Moon

old lover facing death

mourning a partner’s death

you show me the pain, the wound

why do you call on me?

am I a bounty to be paid

in trade for your loss?

am I goddess mother Thetis

stepping from sea to sand

to soothe her bitter child?

am I Pallas Athena come

to make you taller, stronger

younger, or invisible?

mother, lover, bride — not I

nor anyone can save you

your loss is your own

a crescent moon is a sphere

of sorrow waiting for light

that hollow, that void

won’t heal, it holds

the world — earth, stone, tree

you can learn to shine alone

Tree Born

red cedar

twice as tall as

the house

planted too close

seeded by

a bird’s bill

a chipmunk’s cheek

trunk broad as

the torso of Achilles

ill-fortune, call it fate

fells it

end of

shade-littered roof

snow-domed branches

was Helen

oak-wood or cedar

perfumed plank

or salt-rimed prow

the rived stump

rose-vein of the wood

now plinth

hearth

here the doll’s

glass eyes

charm, an eidolon

Burying Time

squirrel runs a nut across the lawn

stops to scrabble frozen ground — no

can — winter isn’t burying time

how does squirrel in hungry times

unbury nuts from frozen lawn?

slender paws with hard claws are no

go on frozen ground — squirrel knows

the drill, always deep in winter time

Vermont, snow warms the lawn

alas — bare lawn, no dig this time

Housemates

convex, light orange with dark spots

ladybug motors toward my chair

she & the night-time mice share

my house — it’s mine, but I’ll always share

the space with those who came before, their spots

mark the walls, the boards beneath my chair

years ago in some other chair

the postmistress sat for kids — where

are they now? which were their spots?

the past is spotty, chairs are ours to share

Otter Creek Gorge

1

a bridge spans the spill of the dam

upstream, water seems not to move

until it falls, boils, scatters

more than water, light scatters

gold glints the width of the dam

its concrete battered — as winter moves

to spring, ice-hung hemlocks move

drop by drop, the fresh melt scatters

steel cables hum above the dam

may dams be scattered, may rivers move

2

snow squall on the way — an otter

crossing a snow bank, peering underwater

doesn’t hear a phone ping, unknowing it glides

safely, not like blind cars beginning to glide

sideways in whiteout — wide-eyed, the otter

slides off the snow bank, slips underwater

under thick ice, where shadowy water

flows downstream, a dark glade

snow squalls don’t find — yet otter

finds otter, the two glide, on & under water