Good Company

 

The dead are good company.

They have the best stories.

They never have moods

Or awkward silences;

They are always a shining

Summation of themselves,

Instead of the cracked, unsteady,

Blowing-in-the-wind creatures

The living are. They take things easily.

 

They can’t hold your hand, of course,

Or drive you to the airport,

But they laugh readily,

More readily than we do,

Because they do not grieve;

They are past all grief.

They are always smiling -

We remember them smiling - 

And they are never impatient;

They have nothing but time.

 

But at night,

In the lonely hours,

They have a way

Of vanishing again,

Leaving us alone

In the ocean of a bed,

Wracked with new grief,

As if on the very first day.

 

The only thing better 

Than remembering you, my darling,

Would be to have you back.

Would be to have you back.

Home

 

The old, good smell

Of three-hundred-year floorboards 

Greets me like a mutt

The moment I walk in.

 

The house is quiet,

But a light is burning,

And a note on the chalkboard 

Welcomes me home.

 

There are places and places.

Most of them just flow by.

A few linger like incense - 

And some lodge deep in flesh,

 

Resisting entropy,

The normal wear of time,

And all other claimants 

To the wandering, homesick heart.

Word

 

The naming is all.

Naming masters a thing.

Every city

Was first a dream,

And between the dreaming

And the building-up,

There was a word -

A thousand words -

Invocations, plans, commands -

A babble of practical abstraction -

Until the city stood,

Stark, inarguable,

Washed in a silence

Only now possible -

Afloat in the dawn

Of a future now begun.

Hearth

 

The wind is at the door,

Knocking on the house,

Brushing the bare floor,

Frightening the mouse;

 

The log is on the fire,

Although the house is poor

And the banshees wail in choir

And the wind is at the door.

Dusk After a Storm

 

Rain-washed, cloud-laden, the sky

Fades in delicate pinks and blues,

And God is beauty, too big for the heart,

Stabbing home fiercely, paling all else,

Cleansing the mind of even its joys,

Till the soul, transparent,

Is part of the blazing sky,

The darkening earth, the rising song

Of crickets in the meadow,

Who sing of the fall of night.

Apology for Dancing

 

We had to dance,

Because there was music,

Because the sun was low

And the air was getting cool;

 

We had to dance,

Because we were celebrating

The union of two hearts,

And also life itself.

 

We had to dance,

In spite of your absence,

Or even because of it -

Because you would have danced, too.

 

We had to dance,

Because we still can,

Because time is precious,

And always slipping away.

 

We had to dance,

Because we are all that’s left of you,

And if we are not dancing,

Then who under heaven will?

One More Evening

 

One more evening –

God, give me one more evening,

With a sun somewhere

Below the horizon

And the final clouds

Dying in pastels,

 

And a moon waxing

(Or waning, either will do),

And – if it’s not too much –

A parade of fireflies,

Sewn at random

Across the meadow

Like Will o’ the Wisp.

 

Just one more evening –

And after that, just one more;

And after that, one further evening,

And one to follow,

And on and on.

God, please –

Give me just a million evenings,

And when those are passed

I will say goodnight –

 

But not with gratitude –

No, never with gratitude –

Because that is akin to resignation,

And I would not have a soul –

Not one worthy of the name –

If I did not always want

One more, one more, one more.