I didn’t mean to stay so late
or lie there in the grass
all summer afternoon and thoughtless
as the kite of sun caught in the tree-limbs
and the crimson field began to burn,
then tilt way.
I hung on
handily as night lit up the sky’s black skull
and star-flakes fell as if forever—
fat white petals of a far-off flower
like manna on the plains.

A ripe moon lifted in the east,
its eye so focused,
knowing what I knew but had forgotten
of the only death I’ll ever really need
to keep me going.

Did I sleep to wake or wake to sleep?

I slipped in seams through many layers,
soil and subsoil, rooting
in the loamy depths of my creation,
where at last I almost felt at home.

But rose at dawn in rosy light,
beginning in the dew-sop long-haired grass,
having been taken, tossed,
having gone down, a blackened tooth
in sugary old gums, that ground
where innocence is found, unfound,
making my way toward the barn,
its beams alight,
its rafters blazing in the red-ball sun.

We suffer through blinding equatorial heat,
refusing to unfold the suspended bamboo shade 
nested by a pair of hardworking, cheerless sparrows.
We’ve watched them fly in-and-out of their double
entryways, dried grass, twigs clamped in their beaks.
They skip, nestle in their woodsy tunnel punctured
with light, we presume, not total darkness, their eggs
aglow like lunar orbs. What is a home? How easily 
it can be destroyed: the untying of traditional ropes,
pull, the scroll-unraveling. For want of a sweltering
living room to be thrown into relief by shadow.

The sunning couple perch open-winged, tube lofty
as in Aristophanes' city of birds, home made sturdy
by creature logic and faith that it will all remain afloat.

Under a spreading chestnut-tree

     ⁠The village smithy stands;

The smith, a mighty man is he,

     With large and sinewy hands,

And the muscles of his brawny arms

     Are strong as iron bands.

His hair is crisp, and black, and long;

     His face is like the tan;

His brow is wet with honest sweat,

     He earns whate'er he can,

And looks the whole world in the face,

     For he owes not any man.

Week in, week out, from morn till night,

     You can hear his bellows blow;

You can hear him swing his heavy sledge,

     With measured beat and slow,

Like a sexton ringing the village bell,

     When the evening sun is low.

And children coming home from school

     Look in at the open door;

They love to see the flaming forge,

     And hear the bellows roar,

And catch the burning sparks that fly

     Like chaff from a threshing-floor.

He goes on Sunday to the church,

     And sits among his boys;

He hears the parson pray and preach,

     He hears his daughter's voice

Singing in the village choir,

     And it makes his heart rejoice.

It sounds to him like her mother's voice

     Singing in Paradise!

He needs must think of her once more,

     How in the grave she lies;

And with his hard, rough hand he wipes

     A tear out of his eyes.

Toiling,—rejoicing,—sorrowing,

     Onward through life he goes;

Each morning sees some task begin,

     Each evening sees it close;

Something attempted, something done,

     Has earned a night's repose.

Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend,

     For the lesson thou hast taught!

Thus at the flaming forge of life

     Our fortunes must be wrought;

Thus on its sounding anvil shaped

     Each burning deed and thought.

^{after Ted Berrigan}

Floss my throat
                        wash my feet then glower
kiss Curtis at 7:30
                        to shake him
feed Kitty
            philosophical tenders
stroll the valley
                        of dearth to Journal Square
keep faith like a Benedictine
                                    under the Hudson

Work like a yo-yo
                        nap like a bear
address endless emails
                        to forgotten writers
jack the meter
            to stand tall
drink lust as if
                        it were spring water
walk through the Mews
            when the coast is near
leave my friends and shadows
                        generous margins for error

My Savior, let me hear Thy voice tonight, 
       I’ll follow Thee, I’ll follow Thee; 
The clouds that overhang my way, obscure
    the light, 
       And all is dark to me. 

I’d hear Thy voice above the tempest’s shriek; 
       I’ll follow Thee, I’ll follow Thee; 
And though my sight be dim, my spirit weak, 
       I’ll trust, though naught I see. 

I’d feel Thy arm, supporting in the dark; 
       I’ll follow Thee, I’ll follow Thee; 
For Thou canst fan to flame, faith’s sinking 
    spark, 
       And seal my loyalty.

I shall not sink, dear Lord, when Thou’rt my 
       guide, 
          I’ll follow Thee; I’ll follow Thee; 
Though lashed by heavy waves, on ev’ry side, 
          I’m safe, when Thou’rt with me.

     Every seventh year you shall practice remission of debts. 
                                    (Deuteronomy 15:1)

How simple it ought to be, to practice compassion 
on someone gone, even love him, long as he’s not 
right there in front of me, for I turned to address him, 
as I do, and saw that no one’s lived in that spot 
for quite some time. O turner-away of prayer—
not much of a God, but he was never meant to be. 
For the seventh time I light him a candle; an entire 
evening and morning it burns; not a light to see 
by, more a reminder of light, a remainder, in a glass 
with a prayer on the label and a bar code from the store. 
How can he go on? He can’t. Then let him pass away; 
he gave what light he could. What more 
will I claim, what debt of grace he doesn’t owe? 
If I forgive him, he is free to go.

^{Level II: Basic Assessment}

All my life I was a hammer:  
I struck at everything I touched. 

Then I commit a few Thursdays  
to trees. I am not gentle but I could be. 

Around one tree, I try my basic circling  
steps, tap the tree’s bark with my mallet  

and listen for the difference: alive?  
dead? alive? dead? alive? still alive?  

I muscle coils of clay and learn  
the same lesson again and again– 

could be clay trees family trees  
literal trees: I hear the precarious things.  

I go phone-my-forester asking  
about sounding trees, about my ears?  

How I want to save a few trees  
but don’t understand what I hear.  

All my life I swung the wrong things.  
I put down mallet and muscle,  

circle the tree’s girdling roots  
and ask, “Where does it hurt?”  

The forester returns my call.  
He’s glad he caught me this evening. 

He heard what I asked about trees  
and ears. “It’s subtle, takes practice.”

^{—Poetry was an Olympic event from 1912-1948.}

Think of the records you have held:
For one second, you were the world’s youngest person.

It was a long time ago, but still.
At this moment, you are living 

In the farthest thousandth-of-a-second in the history of time.
You have beaten yesterday’s record, again.

You were perhaps the only participant,
But in the race to get from your bedroom to the bathroom, 

You won.
You win so much, all the time in all things.

Your heart simply beats and beats and beats—
It does not lose, although perhaps one day.

Nevertheless, the lists of firsts for you is endless—
Doing what you have not done before,

Tasting sake and mole, smelling bergamot, hearing
Less well than you used to—

Not all records are for the scrapbook, of course—
Sometimes you are the best at being the worst.

Some records are secret—you know which ones.
Some records you’re not even aware of.

In general, however, at the end of a long day, you are—
Unlikely as it may seem—the record holder of note.  

His drinking was different in sunshine,

as if it couldn’t be bad. Sudden, manic,

he swung into a laugh, bought me

two ice creams, said One for each hand.

Half the hot inning I licked Good Humor

running down wrists. My bird-mother

earlier, packing my pockets with sun block,

had hopped her warning: Be careful.



So, pinned between his knees, I held

his Old Style in both hands

while he streaked the sun block on my cheeks

and slurred My little Indian princess.

Home run: the hairy necks of the men in front

jumped up, thighs torn from gummy green bleachers

to join the violent scramble. Father

held me close and said Be careful,

be careful. But why should I be full of care

with his thick arm circling my shoulders,

with a high smiling sun, like a home run,

in the upper right-hand corner of the sky?

   after practice: right foot
to left foot, stepping forward and back, 
   to right foot and left foot,
and left foot up to his thigh, holding 
   it on his thigh as he twists
around in a circle, until it rolls 
   down the inside of his leg,
like a tickle of sweat, not catching 
   and tapping on the soft
side of his foot, and juggling
   once, twice, three times,
hopping on one foot like a jump-roper 
   in the gym, now trapping
and holding the ball in midair, 
   balancing it on the instep
of his weak left foot, stepping forward 
   and forward and back, then
lifting it overhead until it hangs there; 
   and squaring off his body,
he keeps the ball aloft with a nudge 
   of his neck, heading it
from side to side, softer and softer, 
   like a dying refrain,
until the ball, slowing, balances 
   itself on his hairline,
the hot sun and sweat filling his eyes 
   as he jiggles this way
and that, then flicking it up gently, 
   hunching his shoulders
and tilting his head back, he traps it 
   in the hollow of his neck,
and bending at the waist, sees his shadow, 
   his dangling T-shirt, the bent
blades of brown grass in summer heat; 
   and relaxing, the ball slipping
down his back . . . and missing his foot.

   He wheels around, he marches 
over the ball, as if it were a rock
   he stumbled into, and pressing
his left foot against it, he pushes it
   against the inside of his right 
until it pops into the air, is heeled
   over his head—the rainbow!—
and settles on his extended thigh before
   rolling over his knee and down 
his shin, so he can juggle it again
   from his left foot to his right foot
—and right foot to left foot to thigh—
   as he wanders, on the last day
of summer, around the empty field.