I Hear America Singing - by
I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
/ Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe…
American poetry
To Judgement: An Assay - by
You change a life
/ as eating an artichoke changes the taste
/ of whatever is eaten after.
/ Yet you are not an artichoke, not…
It Was Like This: You Were Happy - by
It was like this:
/ you were happy, then you were sad,
/ then happy again, then not.
/
/ It went on.
/ You were innocent or you…
Three Foxes by the Edge of the Field at Twilight - by
One ran,
/ her nose to the ground,
/ a rusty shadow
/ neither hunting nor playing.
/
/ One stood; sat; lay down; stood again.
/
/ One never moved,
/ except to…
Optimism - by
More and more I have come to admire resilience.
/ Not the simple resistance of a pillow, whose foam
/ returns over and over…
Tree - by
It is foolish
/ to let a young redwood
/ grow next to a house.
/
/ Even in this
/ one lifetime,
/ you will have to choose.
/
/ That great calm…
French Horn - by
For a few days only,
/ the plum tree outside the window
/ shoulders perfection.
/ No matter the plums will be small,
/ eaten only by squirrels…
The Supple Deer - by
The quiet opening
/ between fence strands
/ perhaps eighteen inches.
/
/ Antlers to hind hooves,
/ four feet off the ground,
/ the deer poured through.
/
/ No tuft of the…
Opening the Hands between Here and Here - by
On the dark road, only the weight of the rope.
/ Yet the horse is there.
Paragraphs from a Daybook - by
for Claire Malroux
/
/ On a beechwood sideboard, there sat in state
/ an object whose functional equivalent
/ would be, in American, a trivet,
/ but “trivet”…
My Grandmother’s Love Letters - by
There are no stars tonight
/ But those of memory.
/ Yet how much room for memory there is
/ In the loose…
Poets to Come - by
I myself but write one or two indicative words for the future,
I but advance a moment only to wheel and hurry back in the darkness.