More on: Poetry

Most days the labyrinth’s covered up with folding chairs, but Fridays it’s open even to unbelievers. Our docent says the labyrinth is not a maze, that the pilgrim cannot lose her way coiling toward the center rose. My pastor friend and I are chaperones, here to help field-tripping kids weave the ancient circuit that the…

__________The poet is in labor.    ______________—Denise Levertov   _______I confess the obvious, my inadequacy to translate famine to bread to feed all the hungry children on earth. Wish I could invent a happiness machine or dollar tree blossoming with nontaxable revenue for small businesses. Wish for a thousand bitcoins, wild doves of aqueous tongues,…

Both hands of a clock rotate counterclockwise as I read backwards—you, give, leave, I,  peace. You gave us peace. You left us peace. You left us for a little while until you returned, glorified in an era without aerial shots, prior to montage. A figurative clock I mentioned is anachronistic. You said, Peace I leave…

Carrying flowers in a vase in a high wind is similar to Herding butterflies without a net. All of the beautiful colors wind-surfing down and away, Sweet release of all we held dear. And that is the way it goes, Rose petals flat-hatting down the interminable divides. So hold on tight, raven breath, Hold on…

It’s funny how light sifts down, out of itself, ______________________________________funny How thin, erasable darkness seeps up and expands, Gauzing the underworld, ______________________everything suddenly stopped, No wind, no movement, no words, The wheel stilled, the crack to the radiant world closing in on itself. One way of putting it. ____________________Another would be it’s twilight time, Last…

The view from the west-facing window dwindled and gloamed. The flies continued to buzz, ________________________the mice never set a pad down. The flies continued to buzz. Who is the father of time, death or his arrogant brother?  

These days I write elegies and read the Metaphysicals. And when I turn the radio on prefer to hear a pennywhistle playing “Purple Heather.” In all weathers I wander back to parishes where I feel nostalgia for the doughnut shop and the junkyard where things were given a second chance.   It was there that…

I think of the days in our first house of marriage, in our country of clouds that were black like shadows on shadows, when hope and history seemed to hang in the balance between the bomber and the assassin. Those were the evenings spent leaning across the wooden table to hear the talk of dear…

The man I imagine walking to Emmaus is the one I saw in Caravaggio’s flesh-and-bone depiction of Christ beckoning the taxman to his side, steady arm outstretched, pointing a finger at the table of cardsharps. It’s a gesture that’s the same in every language and seems to say there’s no time to wait for those…

Everything solid Melts away The knot in the heart Laughter from the lips Waves come loose from the ocean Grind the shingle into gritty lines Every line is sea-scum and the cry of gulls The moon drags up water and the fluids of my body My veins—a red hammock beneath the moon I dream I…