Celebrations

The full moon is dancing

among hurried clouds,

and I, too, am stepping

to the beat of a magic word,

one called remission.

Those enemies my own body

so unknowingly launched

are now making their retreat,

leaving me in the grasp

of some new and dizzy tune

which may elude notation,

whose words I may not know,

incapable of exact performance,

but whose message is clear--

that to whatever music remains,

I must keep dancing on.

Thoughts in Late December

There it was, once again

in the center of the sky,

a faintly glowing Orion,

and this winter’s cold

is well and truly arrived.

The cycle does go on,

that great reassurance

of being entire, an order

which belies the disorder

that lives down below,

but in vain it contradicts

the awful mess we make

ever and always since Eden,

the drift of our careless ways,

despite the gifts endowed

by a knowing generosity

we forget how to know.

Thus what a miracle it is,

that on some rare days

the stars will have their way;

and the light of kindness

does not surrender an inch,

refuses to yield its duty,

and shines on, denying the dark.

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.

November 11, 2016

I am outside, walking with my dog,

both of us a little slower now

as we move through the new dark

of this mid-autumn evening,

and there is a super moon

( or so we have been told

by all the learned astronomers),

the brightest mankind has seen

since 1948-- auspicious indeed.

In that year my brother came forth

and my father was soon departed,

off to find new ventures up north,

starting a three year separation.

Thus, I am sure it is meaningful,

but Maisie is not so certain,

still earth bound is Ashe

with all her doggy concerns,

the smells that assure her

she is somewhere near home,

and not a bad place to be.

While I muse of heaven and forever,

and search for links to the past,

she reminds me that this soil

is where we are consigned,

of the need to find our path

through the maze of each day--

in this lovely breathing now.  

Devotions

(Read at the Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship November 20, 2016)

I can’t subscribe to piety,

but perhaps I will be devout,

though I won’t be too specific

about where I direct it.  To be aware

rather than observant is my direction:

sure of the love bestowed on me,

bathed in gratitude every morning,

but less certain of allegiances;

much as in listening to Bach

I am assured of majesty

and confident of eternity

without trying to be exact;

though on some nights I am happy

to defer to the last few crickets

in their song outside my window,

defying the days which must come,

or to a moon so large and bright

that eyes almost conceive a corona;

and so it goes on, this gift

I scarcely deserve,

this wonder that needs no name.