Words, Galaxies, and Stars
2016
Winter Solstice 2016
For Dad
I sat sad but happy when I lifted my head to see
How the air currents of the western slope of my city
Draw the swallows and their miracle flight.
The dance of these mercurial angels
Show me how things come together, then fall apart, then come together again.
In my life, I take the part in my heart and in the world around me.
(Like Yeats and Achebe, not like those empty heads on TV and their sour orange man)
I floated easily and wonderfully as I lifted my head to see
A downy woodpecker at work in the center of my city.
Clear, beautiful, un-purpose of color and sound
In the southern sky sun, glowing white, red, brown
Within a crazy world, a way to live a life provided -
Happenstance, that when things are not easy, they are.
I stood lonely but loved as I lifted my head to see
The super moon rise on the eastern shore of my city.
In the sound of a distant saxophone and in
The quarter million moonlight I saw
You pick me up and carry me when lost
Along the boardwalk by the ocean shore
Yes, I need not carry this weight alone for long.
Still lifting me clear away from the dark and fear
To knowing there are no sins -
Each morning, each year
Light wins.
2017
TILTING
I tilt.
Twenty-three and one-half degrees, forward and back, towards a good star.
Are there solstices for me?
Summer days are short; winter days, long; nights - always long.
I don't reap and sow as they did.
I have electric lights.
I travel south and find equal day and night and then lose them.
I lean forward or backward and say “hello” to
Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, Venus, and the moon.
They respond their way, as does the sun.
I don’t know and let it go.
Cars rush past, and planes fly high.
People come and then go.
I tilt, and I don’t know and let it go.
A sheet of swallows blows in the wind.
A song emerges from a red bird.
A River flows.
I tilt, and I don’t know and let it go.
But are there solstices for me?
I do tilt short or long
Towards or away from something,
Which is all I know:
I can hope, and I can love, really love.
Yes, I am the solstice.
I tilt – long and short – and tilt again – towards light.
I tilt, and I hope, and I love.
2018
Manger Scene
Once static figurines
Move in the shadowy night
A glittering, miracle of light
Ceramic, clay break
Artifacts left behind and
Writing that endures
(In the beginning was the word)
The story (the greatest?) ever told
Possum silently passes by
Racoon wondering in the dark
Possum pauses (not playing)
Racoon in striped kind
Knows without hearing
“These long nights are good.”
As does Possum
“Yes. Quiet. Silent you might say.”
Silhouette in a light box above
Lit from deep within as
Cat stealthily passes below
“What do you know?”
“No more than you who tells me all.”
Through the clear glass
From your shadow grasped
Cat looks up having heard
Owl or maybe Mockingbird
Indifferent to the Difference as
Nightingales’ songs
Unbroken, moving figurines
Shadow and Silence and Song
Under the morning star (she) and
The incandescent moon and
A Silhouette lit from within
In the manger
Light holds sway
2019
DecembeR 18
Nadir
Darker
Longer
Languor
Torpor
Inner
Harbor
Dreamer
Who are
How are
Where are
There are
Reservoir
River
Nearer
Clearer
Brighter
STAR
2020
On Cosmic Conjunctions
When previously aligned
Lords at Runnymede designed
And made John Lackland sign
For their, others’, and our time
A long, lasting list of laws
For dark ages and hidden flaws.
Nothing stays together too long
Over and over, hearts are wrong.
Things come together again
Two gaseous giants in a row.
Behind the Jovian giant’s reign
Saturn’s splendor rings and glows
Just shy of stardom’s state
Can these then discern our fate?
Venus in the morning
Mars high in the sky
Moon muse growing
No need to wonder why
The night puts together, aligns
To yield again a Zodiac sublime.
It’s the Cosmic Order, a celestial show
The wonder of the ages and
All we need to know
2021
First Things First
Busy, brown bird
On the ground
Head tilting, twisting
Still a leaf
Up in the tree
Wild, worried wind
In the air
Wing lifting, fraying
Against the sky
Under the moon
“Don’t leave yet.”
“I’ll be back,
But first things first,
Yes, for example,
A star.”
A million miles
Past the moon
Light reflecting, knowing
Of the universe
Before the sun
“I am back,
But first things first,
You know, for example…”
“Love?”
2022
The title of this poem is
Celestial Silver Mines
Or maybe it’s
Why is Greensleeves a Christmas Song?
I asked the silent night sky,
As the moon eclipsed Mars,
As I saw it.
The night was not dark
Because the moon was full.
Mars was hidden but
Not always, just tonight for me,
Having seen
The fire sunset of autumn,
A red tree ablaze.
And the cold rush of winter,
A brown leaf in the wind.
And a bejeweled moon,
A pendant dangling from Jupiter’s star.
And then having seen
A shadow across her face,
Burnt red and orange
The earth in its way.
Then, lived days later,
As a milky white moon lingering
In a pale blue early morning sky.
As the sun rose,
Over the city
I saw dark buildings
Become silver
And shine.
2023
TUTTO È POSSIBLE (EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE)
Welcome back Orion,
Climbing up big over the east.
I have seen you before,
Even this year!
As you stared indifferent to me
Through an arbor cloaked in
Tropical mystery.
Were you pursuing
The moon and Jupiter?
Or the beguiling bull,
Who asked,
“Aldebaran red,
Rigel is blue
If Betelgeuse explodes,
What will we do?”
Far from home
A blue star burned brightly
All alone
And asked again,
Across the great black firmament
Dotted and streaked with light.
No one answered.
Then, in the always pre-dawn,
A familiar bird flirted with
The coming light,
Rays of red starlight,
The cardinal’s song,
Welcoming back the sun.
That solitary blue star,
Once near to one small and bright
But suddenly distant and dim,
Loves light alone again.
Meanwhile, high in the night sky,
An old white star,
Serene in her celestial reign,
Shines forever.
2024
Light in Unexpected Places
The sun sank sooner
Behind the lone red bird
On the fence
As expected
The moon rose
Orion yawned and
Stretched to Jupiter
Who warned -
“Venus! There in the west,
Quick, she’s leaving!”
But Orion’s arrow missed
And Venus laughed -
“Ageless hunter,
I’ll be back.
Look!
There is light in
Unexpected places:”
On a sparrow’s wing
In a dark corner
Across a barren wall
Through a red leaf
In a puppy's eyes
In the chill morning air
Atop a starling’s rainbow
Over the orange treetop
Behind yellow shutters
Into new windows
Under stick trees
Beneath dark pink clouds
Star colors
Through a satin curtain
Projected on a wall
Off the face of the moon
Until
The sun rose again
In front of
The redbird
In flight
Toward
Unexpected places.