I and It

Nothing nature does rests in archives

we can look up and read again unless

it is what we remember of our lives

and see within and do not have to guess

what has happened under some duress.

What seems natural is not always wise.

Gun, Sonnet #620

A half-dressed man once pointed his gun

At me from an upper floor window

In the street: “Hey, kid, want some fun!”

He laughed. For a moment I didn’t know

Who I was — not until he disappeared.

Nothing had happened, something feared,

Because the child’s world I knew

Had never been so wrenched askew. 

Even so, I ran home, my lungs bursting,

Shouting with joy — no, then cursing,

Crying, tears stinging, feeling shame

For which I’ve never found a name.

          (                                              )

          (                                              )

Blue Note, Sonnet #619

I took a photo seven times —

A thick grove of dark spindly trees

Backed by a bright December sun —

And a small turquoise dot shines

In each — the camera lens sees

Images where I think are none.

I continued my walk by a pond,

Looking for mink and waterfowl.

Hawks circled each other beyond,

Their screeches in the wind a howl.

From deep hoof prints I knew a deer

Had trod this path, now nowhere near.

I stared at the sun — a blinked tear

Painted the trees with a blue smear.

Beyond, Sonnet #618

There is so little that is right here,

I might suspect there’s nothing more.

Everything grows within the sphere

Of my eye — ocean crashing shore.

What’s far is near, what’s then is now,

Eating a pear is taking a vow.

Can I leave it at that, the I

Looking through the window at trees,

And nail thunderclouds to the sky

With a hundred thousand me’s?

Ego was never so rewarded

Choosing to lose what it’s hoarded.

Some say there is nothing beyond,

Ignoring our interstitial bond.

On The Waste Land, Sonnet #617

One hundred and one years ago

He diagnosed our vertigo.

His scalpel cut beneath the skin

And removed original sin.

He held it in his palsied hands —

The nothing he left on Margate Sands.

It’s only gotten worse since then —

The commandments are ten times ten. 

Dust is fear and the unreal real.

Now it’s not what you think, but feel.

A cacophony of voices

Warns us to forget all choices.

As night falls a whimpered prayer

Leaves the nervous chanting sayer.

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.