To My Friend Who Is Outraged at Little Marsh Man for Disregarding HOA Regulations

little marsh man

pruning & sodding

the marsh commons

planting flower gardens

to better his view

he’s adorning

earth, he’s making

what he believes is beauty

or calls beauty

while you, my friend 

rage — 

             I’m not willing

to say that only nature

can triumph

it's the nature of the view

of the viewer

what he wants

vs what you want

likely his position

in the community

outrivals yours

else your complaints

would hold water

instead 

             like the marsh

things ebb & flow

parch & flood

he’s common 

the little marsh man

soon enough 

he will die

as will you & I

while the marsh

water & wild grass

creatures of water & air

& mud

            will remain

 

Kingsland Bay State Park

the lake spreads out like the space

left by a missing year

gleam between winter trees, steel blue

white plastic moorings

cold water, diving ducks, shoreline

curbs the view of more water

below the trail earth plunges, rock

& trees barely hanging

slippy footing on glacier-carved rock

tree roots used to bruises

ahead of us the whole way the dog

noses another trail

a past we can’t perceive

alive to her as if it’s now

she’s old, she closes her eyes

at other dogs

Parade

white trunks, brown foliage

green fir, blue sky

the shimmering image propels a leaf 

loose flowing white-armed Hera

leading the thunder-hurling

ankle-winged, lyre-strumming crew

the trim flotilla streams by me

watching-from-the-lee-shore

long-past-the-time-of-Greek-gods

mortal that I am — each god

I mean ship, I mean leaf

weaves through tapestry

warped in water drawn by sun

once a song of Homer

Noli Me Tangere

Incompletion makes someone

want to fill your blanks in.

— Kathleen Rooney

    inhabiting Weldon Kees

years turn ulcer

to scar, scar to fold

lost in wrinkles

I climb cold cliffs

mouth open

to wind hail snow

swallow any kind

of weather

I follow the road

enter the woods

let wild beasts come

fail at speaking

a feral tongue

I cross water

barreling

rock after rock

gravity’s darling

take me, fill me

I’m here to be gone

Cloud

muscled streaks

scud toward black hills

reckonings of water

blood-gorged barbs

burrow into slopes

earth & water

rocks woven into trees

upheave, compress

eons of water

cumuli whittle

to wattles, barnacles

molecular water

commutable sacs of self

karst, cenote

disappearing water

day beginning, day end

bird, beaver, bobcat

mingle at water

Aphasia

one child replaces another — Frances

for Layla, Elsa for Bea — every death

punches a hole in the universe, we all

stream through, unstoppable, like rain

like snow — compensation

for what has been lost, sunlight is backdrop

is scenery, is streaming down on

riprap, forgetting is the collapse

of language’s wave function [Waldrep]

speaking on a roll is speaking a wave of

eminent elegant words from a web

where they hang for safekeeping

now the webs sag, words falter

eminent might have been pertinent

though you feel the swell of eh . . .

exigent . . . though no word comes

besides, who is left to listen?

picture an auditorium waiting for words

like a domed arena, cots in neat rows

nurses washed up, wounded, alive

Snake Mountain

night & day rain, the trail

gleams dark with mud

hikers blister & corduroy

come freeze, every rut is recorded

I feel the trail, think of my boots

how not to sink them, the trail

feels boots, remembers deer

their weightless springing

cleavings at intervals

crossing bog, sleek pelts

fleeing, or without hunters, not fleeing

bed to feed to drink to bed

fawns glance back to locate

others between bare trees, angles

of oak leaves not fallen, feet

dark with earth, that cacophony

In Their Shoes Banana Skins & Aspirins

no wallets or phones, those were stolen

or let’s say, they walked to the beach

untethered, locals, noted a blue bunny

under a clump of grass, orphaned children

runaway mothers, the father compelled

by magnets, alchemy, ice — plimsolls

& strappy sandals, aspirins in a vacuum pak

aspirins for those who found them lost

their swimsuits spread on offshore rocks

bananas to fuel their strokes to reach

riptide, abandon of swirl & swept away

gasp, swallow — shoes as urns, vittles

& solace inside, bananas they fed to apes

they met on the sand, bananas the children

took on the dune buggy ride, aspirins

one stole from a kiosk, a small package

easy to palm, aspirins they would take

if rescued, prevented from taking their lives

plimsolls a pastel green, willow her favorite

tree, popple his — the sound of three p’s

let's say they carried harpoons but not

a net, off to spear blues, the glimmer

that fades the farther it travels from true

bananas stolen from farms along the way

gluey, meaty, like perfumed cheese

Preseason

climbing the CAT track

between ski runs

signposted in four colors

past pipes & solar

ready to make snow

the nature center’s

taxidermied beasts

blue jays high on birches

needle ice bursting

thru autumn soil

nine of us reach the top

of Stark Mountain

three dogs, six people

we’re not together

except geographically

we share a dress code

zippers galore

multi-pocketed packs

bright merino beanies

in 36° sunshine

on a Stark’s Nest bench

eating designer snacks

the signal strong

for well-thumbed phones

at least three of us

slip & fall on ice

we’re okay, nothing broke

no missing pieces

the dogs — off leash

day-glo sweatered

nose to earth — ignore

our hubris, our greed

just as we ignore

every coral reef

every atoll nation

every climate refugee

destined for squalor

thanks to our behavior

 

Every Boat

hubbub of a city park, whisper of my mind

walking along a paved path, others talking

aloud, a boat — white strings, triangle

of flimsy cloth, silvery hoops & nails joining

three pieces of wood into a proposition

set loose on a pond, motion proof of a breeze

I stop to feel, the sail filling one way

the boat going another, what suggests

a boat will return? freed, it yields

to wind & water’s will, a wallowing hull

a luffing sail, how can a boat not

capsize? my watching can’t but jinx

the ride — best to let the question pass

it’s not my boat, every boat I fancy lost