walking to the doctor

i am walking to the doctor
for our annual discussion
of my body
and the way that it grows
older

heat waves on the sidewalk
make everyone shimmer
melt away our imperfections--
see them gleaming in the gutter
     with leaves that fell
     in yesterday's storm

mary in the waiting room
has never been an artist
so she tells me. but
she ballroom danced

back when the big bands
came around oh,
she loved to dance
loved that warm, round sound
it melts away inhibitions--
see them run like the water
     she used to drink
     from the part-time creek
     in the forest behind
     her childhood home
     it was right here--
     right here, you know!--
     but it was so many too many
     years and years ago.

bell tower on the church
rings out the gift of persecution
we smile about our sorrows,
some real, some imagined.
it's a long time yet before you're old,
mary says.

we are young;
we are young.
after all we have endured
we have earned the right
to be young.

Notes towards Motets (for J. Des Prez)

love is the ocean

in which we all swim

where do we go?
how did we begin?

we began in love
and although we struggle
and swim
struggle and swim

we will end
in spite of everything
in love again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNm9tNZePew

All Birds Sing at Once (Writer's Craft)

like everyone, i have my regrets.
chief among them today
is this:

that in my haste to give you wings
and set you flying
i did not pause
to proffer feathers for your caps;
did not perch beside you
did not tell you each by one
that new birds sing in my old heart
when i hear your own birds
singing out from yours.

funny, wild, sad and cynical,
childish and tombstone-eyed birds;
birds of regret, confusion,
anticipation, dread;


birds that transmit love unwillingly
as the tree channels the lightning bolt
that splits it through the center.
birds that accept love unconsciously
as the wing accepts the air that keeps us
flying, breathing, bursting now and then
into flames.

if you leave here thinking
that i do not love you
for your stubborn lightning bolts
and easy air;

if you leave here not believing i
am honored by your company each day,
then i have failed. twice:

once in the teaching of
why and how to write;
once again in the writing of this poem.

this will not be the feather
that gives you the power of flight.
it is too small, too soft around the edges.
but tuck it away:
maybe some cold day you will find it,
deep in the pocket of a coat.

then you will recall this room, this game
we used to play with words.
and if you do not know it yet,
you will know it then:
the you in this poem is really you,
and i am glad to have met you.

thank you for letting your bird sing.

summer somewhere

They all add up, they do:

a leaf, and a leaf, and another.

Soon the trees are bare.

But look around you:

Even in the naked cold of winter,

even when the sun

can only just be bothered

to peer above the corn-stubble

of yesterday’s horizon

it is always summer

somewhere.

While girls cry in stairwells,

boys are playing hockey in the gym.

While someone is falling—

asleep or whatever—

someone is knotting a tie;

someone is boiling an egg;

someone is packing their school bag

and thinking about their day.

speak

all these words pour out of me
like water and like water, wash away.
i long for something permanent,
something that will stay.

i wish i was a sculptor--i
could carve the contours of our love
in stone for all the world to trace.

but i am a musician. all i can do
is from this distance
kiss the air beside your ear
over and over, say
i love you.
i love you.
i love you.

i wish i was a painter,
could mix the reds and blues of you
and paint a sunset half so beautiful.

but i am a musician. all i have
is this guitar
to laugh, to moan, to cry, to say
i love you.
over and over, say
i love you.
i love you.
i love you.

the captain, from his deck chair, on the shore

this lake. it moves with several movements:

the non-directional ruff of waves
the soft aimless surface flow
the deep slow draining of the basin
          from my beach out to the Atlantic
and a ten thousand year upswelling of rock
          pressed down by ancient glaciers
          that imperceptibly empties
          the drinking-bowl of the continent.

it seems futile: my grandchildren
will not recognize this coast as i describe it.
i look down to write.
i look up and things have changed.

that wave. that rock. the shiver of distant rain.
a shrill brown plover, a swan. the details
always shift.
                         i could map for you
each stone, each stick, each cracked black shell,
could blue the world with ink.

futile.

every map is a memory,
a plea for permanence.

every poem is an anchor
dropped desperate from a boat
and dragging the stony sea floor
hoping to find purchase
to hook a crack,
                          to slow us down
before that deep slow draining
(here out to the ocean)
carries us beyond the familiar and loved
into the unknown.

so it seems i write today
from this chair on the beach
because i am afraid to die.

so it seems each smooth grey stone
sits waiting for the tide.

so it seems each purple martin wheels
desperate in flight:
catching at the wind
that keeps it aloft
suspended above the waves.

Groundhog

We went outside
to read poetry.
At least, that was
the official plan.

A seat on the grass,
the shade of a tree,
far enough away
from the front doors
that the cool kids
wouldn't see us,
wouldn't mock us
for caring about such things.

A little Bukowski.
Some Atwood and
Alden Nowlan. But
nothing much was
sticking to our ears.
Sunshine
drowned out our
literary ambitions.

Democracy insists
we each take a turn
so we soldiered on
around the rough
approximation of a circle,
our voices lost
under bus wheels;
our pages bleached
by birdsong. Finally

the groundhog
who lives under the pine
that grows crooked
just outside the frame
of this poem
emerged to save us from
the common drudgery
of learning to love language.

Not yet full of
summer fat
but well beyond
the shadow of winter,
he humped across the lawn.

A girls' phys-ed class
(black shorts, grey tops, shrieking)
agreed he was the
cutest thing. And so
they chased him
low and frantic
amongst the bees and clover
towards the road.

We watched,
not quite horrified,
and hoped
they would recognize in time
that he was just another poem

not worthy of such attention;
that they would grow
bored with chasing visions
and drift away.