for Chris Martin
To you
through whom

these sudden days
blowse & hum

thirst & quench
a tide of tensing trees

days tick by
beats in a song

my body grows
fuller each day

I think my life
has always been

for this quiet
...Read more

As no assistance could be expected
of the ocean, I turned to the trumpeting
tunnel of sky and rummaged
the tops of plum birch turning
their leaves like coins, then
to the tumbler sweating
on the porch rail. The sky,
the color of whale oil. The wind,
a box of uncolored letters. And so
I was ...Read more

I saw the civil sun drying earth's tears -
Her tears of joy that only faster flowed,
Fain would I stretch me by the highway side,
To thaw and trickle with the melting snow,
That mingled soul and body with the tide,
I too may through the pores of nature flow.

But I alas nor tinkle can nor fume,
One...Read more

This morning I looked at the map of the day
And said to myself, "This is the way! This is the way I will go;
Thus shall I range on the roads of achievement,
The way is so clear-it shall all be a joy on the lines marked out."
And then as I went came a place that was strange,-
'Twas a place not down on the map!
...Read more

Through what precinct of life's forest are you hiking at this moment?
Are you kicking up leaf litter or stabbed by brambles?
Of what stuff are you made? Gossamer or chain mail?
Are you, as reputed, marvelously empty? Or invisibly ever-present,
even as this missive is typed? Have you been to Easter Island? Yes?
Then ...Read more

I walked the three floors
of the local antique store
and imagined white plaques
adorning each room
-but unlike museums
I could touch the displays,
and could take a seat
at a beautiful walnut table-
I could wonder about the moment
its palm-stained patina
went from simply dirty
to ...Read more

What are we supposed to make
of the granite block dragged across the dirt lot
behind a tractor that has been instructed
to build up a mound out of the displaced dirt, a mess

far away from what we would call the aesthetic
and more to do with the disturbance

of fresh graves or construction, the ...Read more

and learn again to begin
oh something different
from repetition

Let's go to the morning
and watch the sun smudge

every bankrupt idea
of nature "you can't write about

anymore" said my friend
the photographer "except

as science"
Let's enroll ourselves
<...Read more

Although she feeds me bread of bitterness,
And sinks into my throat her tiger's tooth,
Stealing my breath of life, I will confess
I love this cultured hell that tests my youth!
Her vigor flows like tides into my blood,
Giving me strength erect against her hate.
Her bigness sweeps my being like a flood.
...Read more

There was a road ran past our house
Too lovely to explore.
I asked my mother once-she said
That if you followed where it led
It brought you to the milk-man's door.
(That's why I have not traveled more.)

About this poem
"The Unexplorer" was published in "A Few Figs From Thistles" (Harper & Brothers...Read more

Your troubles shrink not, though I feel them less
Here, far away, than when I tarried near;
I even smile old smiles-with listlessness-
Yet smiles they are, not ghastly mockeries mere.

A thought too strange to house within my brain
Haunting its outer precincts I discern:
-That I will not show zeal again ...Read more

Tonight I'm to occupy a single breath:
to let it slowly out as an open kettle might
release its steam, left long on the stove.
Eventually all substance turns to vapor

& accumulates in the air, then falls
again as a globe under its own weight.
Bodies must be near each other, it seems,
even when the...Read more

My tail of colored feathers
hangs matted
closed behind me

It weighs me down

In this wet darkness
I can neither
dance nor fly

This darkness
weighs me down

No one here
to see my splendor

My only company
the relentless rain

...Read more

How to read a tome of Collected Poems?
Read one that pivotally changes you
and lose track of the page and title.
How to clean a house? Lose your ring in it.

Milosz not having to make peace one day
because the people are dead, nor revisit
some cities of his blood, because they are
razed. I'm still ...Read more

It is the people who remember,
but when the people are gone
we won't have anyone to remember.
People go to a lot of trouble
to make things memorable.
I would like to make things enjoyable
by watching everyone,
and wondering what is going on.
Today I am as full of this day
as the air in this ...Read more

But really
I would prefer
to sit, drink water,
reread some Russians
a while longer
-a luxury
perhaps, but why
should I, anyone,
call it that, why
should reading
what I want,
in a well-hydrated fashion,
always be what I'm
planning to finally
do, like hiking
...Read more

I had come to the house, in a cave of trees,
Facing a sheer sky.
Everything moved,-a bell hung ready to strike,
Sun and reflection wheeled by.

When the bare eyes were before me
And the hissing hair,
Held up at a window, seen through a door.
The stiff bald eyes, the serpents on the forehead
...Read more

The five old bells
Are hurrying and eagerly calling,
Imploring, protesting
They know, but clamorously falling
Into gabbling incoherence, never resting,
Like spattering showers from a bursten sky-rocket dropping
In splashes of sound, endlessly, never stopping.

The silver moon
That somebody ...Read more

seems like a good way to say
I spent all last week feeling helpless
and talking about it in terms of not being

Why can't compassion change our lives
even half so completely as a suicide bomber,
or half so immediately as a natural disaster

Big ideas get me nowhere, so
the fact that breaking ...Read more