Song Of The Crystal

Northern Cardinal Review (Online) September 2013

Safe the harbor here
        where hardwoods creak
             in wind
               bend
        along the water’s edge
to kiss and mix
        their shadows;
to measure air
and mark the water’s reach.

Safe the haven here
        where streamlets, muttering,
           murmur secret histories
           of millrace, of millpond,
and of slightly shifted stone.

Safe safe safe
        where water falls:
        below the cliffstone
beneath a tree, beside a brook.

Hemlock, Sandalwood, Sage

Northern Cardinal Review (Online) Sept 2013

Today it’s hemlock smoke, or
cedar and, under thin clouds
and the huge blue, I’m on a
hillside, high, dreaming about
what summer used to be like,
how all the beautiful women
walked up and down the beach,
their brown eyes no darker
than their deep tans, the sun
not much brighter than their
smiles.
               And I remember that
once I could smell sandalwood
—or maybe it was sage—burning
in the distance on an autumn
afternoon; could hear the chant
of soft wind through sycamore,
the burble of a mid-day brook,
and I realize
                        I’ve been here
before, been here in all seasons:
when the sun baked the drying
grass; when the snow drifted
into the hollows between the
hills; when the first leaves
greened, or the last of them,
reddened, sailed earthward
on autumn-scented air.

Watch And Wait

Untitled, with Passengers (Online) September 2013
**Audio Link On Page**

 

A homesick Canadian, northbound,
approaching eighty-five or ninety
blasted past me in a thick fog
up on The Heights, swerved
across the breakdown lane, sailed
the ditch and collided with granite;
everything within seconds was aflame.
Nothing could be done. I could only
watch.

Even the ambulance, useless,

red strobes flashing near midnight,
arriving before the useless state police,
long before the merciful fire truck
lumbered up, could do exactly
nothing.

Almost a week went by.

I told and retold the story; told and
almost wept with each telling, each
detail etched clear as an August sky
lit by flame and stars: the streak of
tail lights diminishing, death in the air,
waiting.