Tag Archives: sun

poetry

a promise

Winter falls fast as
the road rises. Slow
sun has been setting
the scene for hours.

Prairie grass bows south
through barbed wire. Yellow
alone does not suffice to
describe it in this light.

It is the north wind lying
cold across the plains in the stems
kneeling, the color of ice deep inside
dry grass long before the road ices.

It is a promise, the real presence
of what is to come. And when I stop
and turn, as everything turns,
the moon, full, is what it is,

what it has been, where it will be, where it has
been from the beginning, pure cold light rising.

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poetry

for now

Φόβος οὐκ ἔστιν ἐν τῇ ἀγάπῃ, ἀλλ’ ἡ τελεία ἀγάπη ἔξω βάλλει τὸν φόβον…
       1 John 4:18

Squills and daffodils
spill over barricades
of law-abiding flowers

until lawns with signs
that warn they have been
treated sweep them under a rug

and huddle behind iron fences
with locked gates. Mosque
exchanges glances

with the BP station
on the corner, a long
discourse concerning

corporate personhood
contained in the silence
between them. Christ

the King (a madrasa
in another tongue), not
a mile away, listens.

Fences begin to sway
where Muddy Waters lived,
and the sidewalk is a mosaic

of broken glass glittering
in sun. Most cardinals
stick to the score,

but song sparrows have been
jamming since sunrise. Spring
cannot contain itself, and when

a young guy strolls by miles later
on Wabash strumming a guitar,
I suppose less than perfect

love will suffice
for now.

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poetry

Mockingbird

You remember a mockingbird sitting
atop bare dying elm branches, singing
every morning, bouncing on deadwood,
limb to limb, faithful like morning sun.

You remember when she left, denial
fell into familiar instinctive patterns:
you delivered flowers, bouquets
of all sizes as if those gestures could
merge with your desperate prayers to save
illusions of happiness, the pretense
that shock and faith make possible.

You remember faint evening breezes
restoring sense as you sat on the porch
seeing the dying elm bare before you.

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poetry

going through the motions


the cyclist who says howdy just after
he’s passed to fulfill an obligation
but reduce the likelihood my reply
will add the burden of conversation
with a stranger
                           (i understand his desire
not to be diverted, nod though I know
he can’t see me)
                             the metal bridge clanking
all the way across this side of the Mississippi
when a bicycle whizzes by, and
the first time i turn to be sure
a truck hasn’t stumbled
onto the walkway
                              the waves
the waves the waves on rocks below
the river moving the cry of a gull
the memory fresh in my ears
of a train that sang its passing
as i stepped out to walk the river
and i am suspended now above it all
until i turn and put my foot down
on solid ground
                           make my way
to the Blue Cat for a Mississippi Mocha
Coffee Stout the last of this day’s sun
in and out of clouds on the horizon
night’s slow rising

Rock Island, Illinois, August 2012

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