November’s Songs

There are few heard

in this bare and silent month

after all the leaves have fallen,

but the nests become visible,

all those homes of summer

we could barely imagine

when hidden by July’s green,

where miracles took place

we have not yet encountered,

magic we will not know

until the grace of spring,

when all those miracles

unwitnessed in the year past

will begin to sing.

Four Short Poems

1.  Advice from an Old Poet

Diminish Marx,

Darwin and Freud,

and let your heart

stray from the void.

Admit the truth

of want and strife.

Honor the craft:

celebrate life!

2.  Eight Big Colors

Green draws the frame of April days,

and purple shades an iris chin.

Yellow we use for loving rays,

and black is our color for sin.

Orange twists itself through sunset skies,

and brown is how summer departs.

Blue sets the depths of someone’s eyes,

and red pumps the hope through our hearts.

Mea Culpa

My sins of commission

I can easily repent:

at least I took action,

whatever its intent.

But sins of omission,

never leaving the blocks,

are conditions that make

wide-awake two o’clocks.

4.  The Yews

On a dark day in a cold place,

your green was a welcome glimmer,

a flight from the grasp of winter

into the breadth of summer days;

into its lively contentions,

the careless coming and going,

the luxury of nature growing

beyond expected dimensions.

Early December at the Arboretum

November was a long month,

from garden’s last breath

before the killing frost

to now, when nearly all is dead.

As I walk along the beds,

now darkened in somber browns,

save the cheerful artifice

of winter pansies and kale

or late ferns clinging to green,

even their duration is doubtful

with the prospects of January.

I still remember a July

when there were pinks, blues,

yellows and even birds singing

tunes of their eternal pursuits,

melodies meant to seal a future;

and I remind myself that winter

is not years, but months and days--

perhaps briefer than the leaves;

and these thoughts are the streams--

as bright as the sun above--

which will move and lift our feet

until they reach the next spring.