memorial day 2010

i think for a moment
of my grandfather,
uncle, children
whom i have not held

in the grass
by my young daughter
i lie flat on my back

i don't remember clouds
like these

the underside
of heaven's wing

beyond and through
the pale
blind blue


daughter i am so afraid of that day.

last night i read through books of poetry

1
poetic diction sweet
like the warm hands
of the night

oh
how she plants in me
her breath

how i awake
in careful
cadences

i think i could make
a thousand lines
of poetry

if i could get
my fingers free

2
a poem about
waking up

swinging my feet aboard the floor
no, fitting them into the pinions
of these weary rails

hank on
the alarm clock radio

click it off
before the lonesome
whistle blows

sometimes you want to be alone
with your simple victory
sometimes you never want to speak again

these things
are so untrue

3
at breakfast

the sunlight
slanting across the dirty table
kid's rice krispies

each clutching monolithic
to its place
some alien planetscape

quick
before i go

how much i love
to kiss each face

4
crossing the overpass

do you ever
imagine

as you cross
that you are down
crossing that road?

do you ever wonder

what would the impact be like?

or would we just
miss?

5
going by a new construction
recently sodded

i think of the man

resting upon the sabbath

his home, his perfect palace
this alien plantescape

oh, he thinks
all the work it takes
to build a paradise

he rested...it is good...upon
the sabbath...to build
paradise...does he know...where

his children are?

6
an hour into work

i wonder
briefly

these things

trailing
away

7
last night
i read through
books
of poetry

for my brother and for my sister

Songbird

a poem for the discontent

what i would like
to say
is that i wish i knew
how to give you
something more than this day

this day
being laid like the transcontinental
rail, track going down
with the train at its back

yes, take that train
on prairie sheaves
the golden sea of time

life is not endless
true and yet
tomorrow--anything--
some mountain may lend its gentle form
to the wide incessant blue

but here is
another day laid out neat and blank
in morning fog and dew

a life like
a light green bungalow

how could you know
that it is made beautiful
precisely because you live in it?

i wish
that someone would
tell this to you.

from a park bench

mourning doves
cut the twilight
upon their angel wings

the sun lowers
its head
like a saint in icon
light

the glass of the water
sky-stained

still there is something
in this oak
and how it will rise
crooked
rough
and wise.

green beetle

your back a
blazing emerald
emblem of the day
in spring's livery
lively, fairly flying

as if we were
nobility
you show us in
then weave away unseen
green in green

the skitter of your legs
quickened with the sun
the hum of the air
preparing for the summer
the lakewater forgetting all its icy chains
feathering away from the sand
in lines like veins of leaves
just beginning to reach from cottonwood trees
all this
spring day
tugging at my limbs

if i were alone here and
not on lunch break
ending in ten minutes
i can just imagine
all the things i might do

i do believe
i might roll down this hill
shedding years
turning green.

night poem no.2

the evening sky hangs for a long time
bleeding light down over dark bodies
of the west maples
their leaves a heaving shadow lump

like what rises
in your throat
before your cheeks in tiny rivers
run

it seems
we should not ask the broad night
what it means

o the circling of the ancient sun

the rustle of the leaves
bayonets of grass
verging streetlight sentinals
if you step out
ask who goes there

what will we
tell them?
what do you and i
mean
to this world?

what else is funny

it's funny
how it is
things you don't like

you find them suddenly
inside your head

and do you like them
once they're in there?
you do like
your own mind?

of course! but
my mind
going up the basement steps
deceived somewhere between
my eyes and feet
i fell before i got that one straight

no, she said
what else
is funny

how the grease
of my affections will
slide my dearest grandparents
clean out of my head

clean out of my head
this bad song
ringing through the empty halls
ba ba ba bum bada
oh baby baby baby.

remembering part of a sermon while changing a diaper late at night

in a church balcony
i listened to a sermon

the part i remember
talking about how parents
are like god to their little kids

i think it is right
to be scared about this idea

for instance
when you change a diaper
at 2am

you must not look in
your baby's eyes
if you want her to sleep again
tonight

and so
i have learned to change her
with my eyes closed
or at the least pretend
i don't notice her looking for me

i hope
god does not know
tricks like this.

sunset, twilight, May

the sky at last
blue and infant pink

in outstretched clouds
shows all its subtle paths

the moon with her funny little smile
is waiting for her light to rise

why should we keep
our two feet on the ground?

the night creeping along the grass
whispers into the earth

gravity
is some secret
they share between them

still this sky hangs for a long time
like a promise spoken lightly
over the dark bodies of the western trees.

rain. three days. trees in the morning.

in the cool of the morning
rain
the trees dark-boughed
wake


ah
to measure
the goodness
of a day cool of the
morning
rain

trees unfolding
growing wild
dark-boughed green
and delicate


rainwater rustling damp
exhaling as you
pass

Commutable

a sudden rush
of affinity as i
pull past this woman
in her honda

like me
eating a banana
on her way to work

something pulls my banana hand
up in a little salute

no
i must stop
pretending

i don't understand
a single thing

Fixing the gutter, eaves, and a bit of the roof.

i gently remove
the aluminum casing
from old boards clad
in their crackled paint
undershirts.

reminds me of my grandfather
in his shop unshaven
muttering
at his favorite bandsaw
making wooden clocks in the shape of minnesota.

the paint is thick
like the detritus
generations of squirrels
have packed among the hollows
of the eaves
the only ones still appreciating
the little glitz of the 1929 trim

my father-in-law
comes over and my little son
with his imaginary nail-gun
gives his own advice.
we study this half-rotten riddle
together
going over all the work
of old men
scrappy beasts and
rainwater.