The path into these woods begins
With tentative steps on bent grass
Widening for two to walk abreast.
The locomotives’ blaring tocsins
Grow infrequent as the years pass.
Few paths reach a place unaddressed,
Though many have been abandoned.
(Van Gogh’s led into wheat fields
Where all men’s souls are pardoned
With the harvest’s generous yields.)
It’s hard to walk on railroad ties,
The first too close, the second too far.
I walk into woods, perhaps in error,
On a path that offers no alibis.
The tiger swallowtail settled
In our Gomphrena Fireworks
Yesterday afternoon sipping
From dozens of pink blooms.
It became crazily nettled
And flew in wild fits and jerks
When a spicebush swallowtail, tipping
Its wings among the blossoms,
Exiled the tiger from its lair.
The wind pushed black wings apart
So wide they ceased to be a pair,
But held fast until the gust died.
The tiger landed like a dart,
But, like the wind, was again denied.
If the end doesn’t end, what then?
This moment is already contingent.
I dare you to count from one to ten,
To ignore a found dime, even a cent.
Each moment just comes back to us
Like the wind in the tree’s susurrous.
We’ve never been here before to be?
Yesterday and tomorrow are empty.
If I walk around the block every day
The houses never look the same,
Flowers grow and trees disappear,
The sidewalk means don’t lose your way,
Signs say don’t misremember your name,
But nothing guarantees that I am here.
Nature knows few right angles.
Man tends to abjure the curved.
Last night the moon swerved
To miss a cloud. The sun dangles.
The old white oak blown down,
Scattered its broken branches.
The wind passed on without a sound
In invisible avalanches.
Some windows are an open cage
Door with nothing inside to show.
Some walls mimic an empty page —
One’s painted with a golden elbow.
We know nothing we don’t realize
With or without our golden eyes.
The boar hound killed the hart;
The elk fooled him — ran free.
Our traps were empty.
The snow buried our cart.
We hauled the meat, left the skins.
While we risk death to survive,
The wealthy go skating!
Yea, they pray for their sins,
As we do just to stay alive.
It is very hard, not hating.
Our women, spiritually dead,
Will pay off all we owe
To those princely anointed,
While we hunt again tomorrow.
The gull leads us down the beach
In false starts, runs, hesitant hops,
Picking dinner from the sand.
With an exaggerated screech
When we get too close, it stops —
Swoops ten feet ahead and stands.
Though we missed our daughters up in Michigan, it was lovely to spend eleven days alone with my wife Ruth Diamond-Guerin. This is by way of love and appreciation.
For Ruth
Is there just one universe?
There the stars and here the cafe.
Hidden lights illuminate the tables.
The various darknesses immerse
Men and stars in dissolving clay.
Are both god and science fables?
The universes are infinite,
They say, and time does not exist.
But here we are and there the stars.
The air is full of perfume and wit,
And a wine too ancient to resist.
All else is beyond, late and far.
Let's nibble galaxies and swallow suns.
I'll count my hours with you by ones.
