Category Archives: Poems 2020

I am traveling with a crowd on foot,
steep country new to me.
Arriving at the summit early
I follow the long ridge east
before returning to see the group has left.
I track them west to catch up
in a strange new world of wonders
where they are eating in a huge room,
cafeteria-style, but with glittering celebration,
streamers and bunting.

Across the room I see a familiar face
I thought was long dead
and hurry towards him, a short man
more full of energy than I remember.
He wants to show me around
and I follow, dazzled by all I see—
landscapes carved with care, misty
waterfalls and rivers running trout.

Growing weary, I can’t keep up,
and see him last descend a cliff
of loose dirt, brush and rock
like a young buck. I am afraid
and choose the long way ‘round
until I’m lost in the expanse
of a modern metropolis
of gray skyscrapers and elevated
thoroughfares from one horizon
to another. I stop blank-faced strangers
to ask directions to the place
where we first arrived, to family
and friends, to where I met him.

When I awake panicked, I am full
of his energy, stepping lightly
on the carpet instead of plodding
in the dark, tossing another stick
into the woodstove without pain.

                                       To ease the pain of living.
                                       Everything else, drunken dumbshow.
                                            – Allen Ginsberg (“Memory Gardens”)

Chill in the dark,
the day before forever—
before eternity slips
into twinkling space.

Alone with ourselves,
we have no secrets left
to bury, only seeds to sow
for summer fruit.

Two owls are talking
across the yard:
emphatic hoots,
promises of spring.

Dogs bark at the scent
of coyotes near—
neither know, neither care
about tomorrow.

It is our moment
to find diversions
in search of awe,
the small and the majestic—

to do the work
to ease the pain of living.
All the rest
drunken dumbshow.