Series: Morning Porch Poems: Autumn 2013

Don’t beat your head
against the dead tree:

the sun will not return
any faster; rather, mind

the insects spilling out—
proof that an empty purse

may yet have currency
left over in the lining.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Lord let it rain
as it must from time
to time, but only grant
the gentleness of wings

to us beneath the trees
so heavy with their golden
fruit, so far away from us
so close to mud and earth—

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Dark heap on the snow where a squirrel husked a walnut.

Scent of Pine-sol lingering in rooms not yet filled.

Half a pair of chopsticks hidden in the knife drawer.

Garden rake on a store shelf of soil cultivators.

Vent hole beneath the eaves through which the house might breathe.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

then vanish into fog.
This way the days too
disappear, and then
come back.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

My mother said
There is thrift,
and there is thrift.
By which she meant:
warmed up, redressed,
some leftovers still
will not pass the test.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Only close your eyes,
the teacher said; to hold
the image lightly in your mind,
do not fear how quickly
the slide is changed,
how brilliance fades.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Insidious winds will blow,
and rain or sleet come down
to blur the fields and try
the patient shoots
that bide their time
beneath the loam—

And waiting seems so long,
and spring too far away
a memory of easeful time:
even the tree whose roots I’ve
coiled indoors into a dish
knows it is time to shed

what remnants it wears
of green— Austere
the habit of the season,
a growing lean. Cast off
the surfeit, give away.
Lean on the longer days.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Snow must be falling in darkness,
frost filling every crevice and vein.

Rain must be washing the curve of the coast,
sleet making cutouts of houses in town.

Someone will drink from a cup too hot to hold
before settling into night’s thick pelt.

Someone will press a forehead against a window
to see what aspect of weather has mantled a field.

Whose roof last glinted in sunlight? Whose boat
last pushed off from the pier in a glittering wake?

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.