Seneca Creek

 

A sunbeam looked solid

In the corner of my eye

As if the turbid water

Had frozen it amber-wise,

 

Or time itself had stopped,

With only me still moving,

Slipping down the river

Like a summer ghost.

 

The Source

 

It’s attention that makes magic.

A very simple thing.

At a glance, a green blotch of woods

Lies limp on a dull horizon,

Yielding nothing of especial interest;

 

But closer up, it grows leaves and flowers,

And the shade takes a certain form,

Minutely shifting

With the tremble of the wind

In a baroque pattern

That never repeats.

 

Closer still, a darting hummingbird

Flashes into existence,

All blurred wings and gaudy colors,

On a fervent mission

To pollinate the world;

 

On his back is one white feather

For no particular reason,

And one edge of that feather

Is gently frayed,

But only because

You troubled to look.

The Kings of Bacon and Eggs

 

The dignity of breakfast 

Belongs to all men -

All equal in the morning,

Bleary and hungry,

Still chewing on a dream

That seemed like someone else’s,

And gazing blankly

At the horizon of a day

That stretches ahead 

Like unfamiliar country 

Where shadows change 

And men speak other tongues.

 

What then? Bacon and eggs.

And buttered toast and coffee dark as pain.

For some people, inexplicably,

A grapefruit; for others, pancakes,

And the sweet nectar of Vermont.

 

We are all the same at breakfast –

Kings enough to eat what we desire –

And wise enough to linger 

Over a final sip of coffee 

Before the day’s vicissitudes 

Divide us into havers, havers-not,

And dreamers-of-having,

Who are perhaps luckiest of all,

Surveying a kingdom of hope every morning 

And living all day in that kingdom 

Till night takes the reins again.

Note

 

This is just a note

To remind you that somewhere,

Across indifferent miles,

A man is thinking of you –

 

Not with the glowing fondness 

Of long and rooted friendship 

But with the uncertain smile

Of one who has seen enough –

 

Enough to wish to see more,

And maybe just enough 

To hope that you may be tempted

To see more of him too.

Worship

 

Every woman’s an altar,

But most altars leave me cold –

Too meager and ascetic, or else

Grown overrich on indulgences;

 

Too ancient, perhaps – too dark-ancestral;

Or newfangled, cultish, coltish, untried;

Too redolent of foreign mysteries –

Or blandly secular, as dry as fact.

 

Yet here you are, fresh as the new-born dawn,

And timeless as the timeless, anxious hope

That wells in me when I again behold

Those pureblue eyes, those winedark dusky brows –

 

And I am suddenly, fervently, religious –

Ready to kneel, to mumble, to adore –

To alter everything for a single glimpse

Of the sacred mystery at the center of you.

Poem in a Bottle

 

If we make it all the way 

I will show you this poem

And we’ll laugh at the fool’s hope 

That somehow came true.

 

For now I’m polite 

And playing it cool 

Burning in secret,

Making conversation 

 

Nursing a hope

Little better than a dream 

And falling in love 

With a version of you 

 

That I half invented,

Half glimpsed on a screen -

All dream, half woman,

As perfect as a lie.

Maryland Summer

 

The heat has fingers.

It takes you by the throat.

It shakes you like a dog

Worrying a rat,

And leaves you broken, gasping,

In the puddle of yourself.

 

But there are ways out.

Water is a great savior.

So, of course, is air conditioning,

In a restaurant or a movie theater,

Though inexplicably, some people’s houses

Are simply surrendered to the heat.

 

And then there’s night,

The refuge of the watchful,

When time slows, the air cools, and light

Is scattered into a million pinpricks,

Each one as bright

As a miniature sun.