1st ZucchiniToday I spied our first zucchiniwhich has followed its saffron flowerlike a compliant stud swelling in shadewithin a forest of coarse stubbled stemsunder a tent of broad leavesgreen as the second color of Christmasa nativity here of the first orderall six inches of it looking to a future of sacrificein a sauté mingled with…

Tending tomato plants while the earthbleeds into the Gulf of MexicoHunkered, hovering over youclipping your lower leaves leaving uncluttered five inchfur-cloaked stems from soil to crownI imagine your crimson future your load of plump red planetswaiting to be pluckedweighted stalks drooping —just a trellis keeping youfrom collapse the way the cosmosis kept by the tension…

SeedingSeeding in a cloud of black flieskneeling and swatting lettuce seeds droppingsmall and humble as asterisksnoting other thoughts of legendsof a universe ripe with proteinsand photosynthesis ; of leaves enfolded on dinner platesbeing lifted by forks slicked with vinegar and oil,garnished with mystery, sweet crisp and fresh as the day ofLet there be light by…

MuhheakantuckThe river that flows both waysflows through my house Sometimes called paradox—called Muhheakantuck by the Lenapewho knew that reversals in timeare not unusual,just often misunderstood by we-who-walk-away-from-understanding The river that flows both wayshas two sources…………….one in front and one behind. It flows fromtwo horizons and meets herein the middle turbulently sometimesbut not always —only when…

“The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume.”………………–Tony Hayward, CEO British Petroleum, on the Gulf of Mexico oil spill The Mean Density of a Corporate Brain GhazalOne sees more devils than vast…

The Algonquin tribes knew this moon as thetime to gather ripening strawberries……………………………………–Old Farmer's Almanac Strawberry MoonI read you Strawberry Moonyou pull the sea in the summermore than two-hundred-thousand milesI see your reach is so longyour arm of gravityyour face of sunlight at midnightthey hold me too But in the moon when the deer shed their…

Song Behind a Rear-Tined TillerThey believed consciousness resided in the heart Aristotle believed this, and the Egyptianswho scooped out dead Pharaoh's brainthrough his nose with a spoonand stuffed his skull with rags assuringhe would not be thinking in the other worldto which he'd travel by long boatbeing wrapped in cloth, speechless, supine in gold,embarked with…

No One in ParticularAre you looking at me? I say to the mountainwhich moves as I run the tiller down the row. But it may not be the mountain I address. Are you talking to me? I say to the pale moonwhich hangs in the blue sky like a ghost ball. But maybe the moon…

Victor Borge and the Player PianoWe lived on Oak Street when one daymy father came home with a white pianobig and heavy as a horse that hadtwo large pedals under its keyboard whichif you placed a paper roll titled Lady of Spainbetween two spindles behind a sliding doorabove the keys like a wood block in…

Spirit Level I've been a carpenter most of my lifeand so have had occasion to usewhat used to be called a spirit-levelbut which today we call a level–ditching spirit for the sake of efficiencybaby-with-bathwater-like as we so often do, way past what's necessary but the hole heaps up this level is used to set things…

Better to say NowI almost didn't get up this morningsleep was so I-want-to-stay-here-the-world-is-fuckedbut there's still something blissful about breathingand notwithstanding what's all too typical in this worldI opened my eyes and found you thereas startlingly usual and knew that with you and our daughtersand friends and the means to ambulate, see, hear, and helpI'd miss…

Forty Thousand Two Hundred Eight I’m out here stacking days as if it were a sportI’m up to forty thousand two hundred eight I sweat memory. I’ve taken off my shirt,I’m feeling great. But as I stack them upthey’re growing short I tally what till now I’ve done Not far from a stupaI eye the…

“The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind.” ………………………………………… –Bob Dylan Eclipse at a wall on a corner of the worldI’m still waiting for Godot as mullahsand priests go by in the robesof their pride incensing andmurmuring. I’m thinkingburn-poles and bombs and wonderhow many gods must there bein the world before too manypeople have…

To Question a Corpse I cannot call a poem, it calls meIt comes, I never go to it. Some days working aloneone will muscle in and say let’s scope this out—it’ll pry at essentials and tuglifting the lid on the casket of the pastto question a corpse. think happenstance—a thing coincidentally side-litglancing off bone, or…

“Abraham said to his father and his people: 'What are these images to whose worship you cleave?' They said: 'We found our fathers worshipping them.' He said: 'Certainly you have been, you and your fathers, in manifest error.'” — Koran, Chapter 21, verses 52-54 The Tughra Loophole Warnings in the Hadithto make no image of…

The Furnace Coffee’s made, the tea-water’s on and here's a glazed pane of iridescent froststroked by a ghost etcher’s point —struck through with silver and laced with light: its gravure of fern fronds glistens on a clear silicon plate……………….…………And there's a brilliant postage stamp of bluepiercing an otherwise stratocumulus domemarking a bit of sky beyond…

“Fish and other marine life could be left gasping for breath in oxygen-poor oceans for thousands of years to come if global warming continues unchecked, scientists warn in a new study.” –National Geographic News; Jan. 28, 2009Dead Zone You are sequestered in waterI am confined by the air You are scaly and finnyI am soft-skinned…

GeeseThis morning when the sky’s red skin isdrawn across a beginning and the grassis taut with frost and the clarityof the edge of things recallsthe precision of an engraver’s pointan irregular V of geese passes left to rightlike beads of an animated rosaryeach a honking Hail Marya striving prayeran individual articulating dotan I-am of we-are…

Making Way —Narragansett Bay 1960 We part from the dockslow as disengaging loversone landlocked the other afloater who won’t bekept at bay The diminishing pier slides back its bollards and planks deployto some other place not herebut to a distancing otherworld—the tether breaks as stern-first we pass the channel buoy ….Quarter back, the O-D says.….Quarter…

Icon ………………………………………………………………………………………….I received a snap of Duke the Dog in which duke in radiant atmosphere standsquintessentially dog-like ……………………………………open-mouthedlolling tongue four-squarepaws planted in green earth ……………………………….…..expectantpoised to please …………………very Christ-likein mist halo silent light still ………………………………. ….all aware I’m yourshe barks standing by……………………….. throw that last stick nowbefore I mount this brilliant torchand rise to sit…