Avenue of Poplars

 

The faintest chitter of leaves in the Fall,

The slant auroras beneath the branches,

The blue-gray clouds that are not clouds at all,

But cloudless sky the fading light blanches,

The warmth and the chill I feel on my cheeks

As sunned and unsunned breezes alternate,

Each gust not finding what the other seeks,

And not one beast reaching out to a mate.

Today I walk this ordered avenue

Until the moon tops the furthest poplar.

It's so bright I can't see a single star,

A Milky Way I cannot know, but knew.

I reach home as the shadows slip away.

Only the moon's been moved enough to stay.

Pine Forest (Gustav Klimt), Sonnet #616

There’s no edge to the pine forest.

We’re always within and without.

It’s neither a question nor test,

Because there’s no room here for doubt.

Its mixed scents purify the air

And its shades rarify the light.

I decide to touch each column,

Which soon urges me toward despair,

As though mine is a hand of blight

That renders the living bark numb.

Without navigable details,

One can get lost in woods — not these,

Whose needled floors delimit trails

Some, not all, follow with ease.

Thorns, Sonnet #615

They pierce a clear blue sky

And tear it to tatters.

Blind or with open eyes,

If I know what matters,

I can thrust my fingers

In and leave blood and flesh.

Yet starlings can linger,

Safe in its lethal mesh.

The question is why thorns?

They can protect a rose.

The bull charges its horns.

But why such a tree grows

Long and fearsome spindles

Pierces us with symbols.

Construct, Sonnet #614

A dreamed-of tern feathered bright tin,

With feet of forks and spoons, and eyes

Of rapidly blinking buttons

Flapping in a nacreous sky . . .

So briefly, yet half-remembered.

Is it different than sand hill cranes

Flying tight skeins, or tiny birds

Fighting at your feeder, insane,

Almost: hungry, or is it greed?

All is constructed by what feeds

The integers of counting we’s,

Assembled — one, one — instantly,

As we try to comprehend dreams —

And all else— as more than just seen.

Returning, Sonnet #613

How many remember so much?

I’ve read for some it’s a burden,

That not a thought or word or touch

Is lost, faded or uncertain.

All comes back clear and unbidden,

A constant stream of images

It is prayed might remain hidden.

No, such a past never ages.

The old yew tree in my back yard,

Subsiding, has dug a sinkhole,

Its roots drawing earth to branches.

I fill it in with sand —it’s hard—

I don’t want to choke the tree’s bole

Just to slow small avalanches.

Villanelle

The moment passed and I forget

The reason why or what I meant

In the exact instant I let

It go like a blank letter sent

To someone I don’t remember.

Even Now is an old event,

Both a flaming and an ember.

To hold, even touch, is to burn

Like September in December.

It takes but a second to learn,

What no-one else will ever know,

That all I am will soon return

If I stand not still but think slow,

Say nothing, and as if asleep,

Allow myself to come and go.

Instead, I cannot help but leap

Ahead to what’s to come and let

My self reach for what it can’t keep,

Moments I already forget.

Two Haiku: Mushrooms

 

Like the tops of skulls —

as my shadow would have said —

don’t you dare eat them!

Two, together, kiss —

a third is all by itself —

a jealous lover!