There is much
you ought to do,
there is much
you could do,
there is much
that needs to be done,
there is much
you might do,
there is much
that you left undone,
and you know this
but on this day
you have chosen
to spend too much
time in thought
and composing
this sad
excuse for a poem.
Life ought be little more than
arrhythmic motion, a path
we only want to straighten,
to smooth, its natural, necessary
twists and bumps somehow,
for we always see them as
impediments not moments
of joyous indecision where
there are no wrong choices
for each choice unfolds
a new path never trodden,
never imagined or foreseen.
A bird flies to where it needs
to be, but for most that are
not migrating, that place
isn’t known until arrival and
even then, save for nesting,
it is the right place only for
a day, a week, a month
or perhaps only a moment,
for a bird knows only this
moment and this until
there are no more moments.
The world ended yesterday
just as predicted, and then
restarted, and nothing at all
seemed to change yet
everything was slightly
different, a little askew.
I noticed it, although no one
around me detected it,
went about their day
as though nothing happened.
The preachers didn’t foresee
it coming, hadn’t predicted it,
glad when the restart did not
signal the end of days, for they
were no longer certain where
they would spend eternity.
I had no such expectations
and the moment duly noted, I
went about my day normally
The pelican has remarkable patience. It doesn’t hurt that he knows how this will play out. It’s pretty much the same, day after day. That’s life on the jetty. Once the crusty old man is done fishing, once he packs up his cart to leave, he will dump his remaining bait fish on the jetty. Or, as the pelican prefers to think of it, the buffet table.
He will do it again tomorrow as he did yesterday and each day before that for as long as he can remember. He would like not to have to do it, but he knows he must, just as he knows the outcome will be almost the same, just the slightest of changes imperceptible from day to day. He doesn’t like the changes, and wishes he could reverse them. But although he has asked, the morning mirror says he cannot. And the mirror is not smiling.
In the twilight of the dove,
that moment when the sun’s
retreat has only just begun
my shadow stretches
ever so slowly into oblivion.
I hear it whisper to me
a promise to return and I
want nothing more than
to believe it, for the grant
of another day is a small
wish granted, one I make
with the knowledge that
the genie of age is growing
ever more tired of responding
to my unchanging request.
Appearing night makes
no promises and the stars
consider me and us all
inconsequential in the
celestial scheme of things
The dawn cedes slowly
to the impinging sunlight
birds greet the new day
The great egret lifts
her wings embracing the cloud
the winter sun smiles
on the barren branch
the red-shouldered hawk awaits
her mate and the sun
sandhill cranes wander
along the shore of the lake
looking for nothing
the moon is a cup
waiting for night to fill it
venus sits empty
On the day after I die
there is a real possibility
that the sun will refuse
to rise, an appropriate
effort at mourning
which would be appreciated
if I were only there
to not see it.
So I will just take it
on faith, and as for those
of you who survive me
I will apologize in advance
for your day of darkness,
although we both know
you probably had it coming.
The moon was kind enough
to linger this morning,
knowing that I wanted
a photograph, and that
I needed sufficient ambient
light to allow me
to fully capture her visage.
Sometimes she rises early
and shows her face
before the sun retreats.
I suppose it may just
be vanity on the moon’s part,
showing off for her brighter
sibling, certain I will never
pause to photograph Sol.
Tomorrow it will be cloudy
most likely, and on that day
the sun will get the last laugh.
I’ve made a practice
which feels more like a demand,
that each day I take a few
moments or more and stop
whatever else I was, or
should have been, doing
to write a poem.
There are days, perhaps this
one where it seems more
a short bit of prose to which
I have added line breaks
despite the protest
of the words, condemning them
to bear the mockery, and
others when I take a poem,
ignore its inherent rhythm
and pass it off as prose,
that insult remembered,
the words plotting revenge
but lying low, waiting
for the perfect moment
to destroy a poem I know
is worthy of publication.
an old writer and his words 