Tag Archives: poetry

I have had the luxury
of not remembering
every story about me,
the mundane details,
embellished and edited,
recounted rhythmically
as if told often to others.

I can dress the rain
goddesses in gossamer gowns,
pen them dancing bare-limbed
with the sycamores
across the creek beckoning
wildly—let myself be drawn
into the image of a poem.

So much is make-believe
looking back into the mirror,
so much forgotten purposely.
I am not ready to retire
to whittling the past
into wooden statuettes
with so much more to do.

Evening shadows climb after rain
around the equinox of dark and light
on Sulphur’s face. My plural we,

all our eyes look up for an expression,
for a hint of the future on the horizon,
beneath the last of gray cumulus

when the green grass seems golden—
almost heavenly when the granite
stacked could be pillars of marble.

How could it seem any other way
after months of no rain? How much
closer to the gate can we imagine?

Not far off, the blackbirds squire
the females, tail-feathers fanned,
wings outstretched a stride behind.

Not far off, the green begins to flower,
wild buds waiting to burst into color,
tender leaves of oaks unfurl on twigs.

The crow pair check the squirrel towns
for blind babies and high on the ridges
the black dots of cows and calves

grazing undisturbed close to heaven.
No one needs us for this moment
in our dreams—we are released.

Somewhere along the way,
I lost my anger for mankind,
that loud and profane passion

felt on dear faces, remembering
how the deep incisions
bled for days. They said

it was the war, the retreat
as unknowing bait
in the Battle of the Bulge,

keeping the men and machinery
together in the frozen snow.
Perhaps I am too old to care,

too far way to threaten
weathermen and politicians
preening before the camera crews.

I’ve lost my outrageous luster—
but as long as I’m alive,
I’ll hear stories I don’t recognize.