Metaphysics

A warm December rain relieves
the unattended silent night,
in the withered garden weaves
its carpet of reflected light.
All our distant instruments
describe a wilderness of sky,
another desert testament,
a lunar hermit’s arctic cry.
Yet night is shivering on the lawns,
splashed in scintillating shards,
as light older than the sun
relaxes with us in our yards.

The stars we follow never seem
to take us where we want to go;
our camels start for Bethlehem,
deliver us to Buffalo,
in which inclement weather we
discover just enough to stay,
as rumors of nativity
are lost behind the frozen gray,
and winter travel’s such a danger
that we settle to await the thaw,
and stumble on a little stranger
lying in the golden straw.

Morning Poem

Winter’s
here. Ice
drapes the eaves,
splits dawn
into pale pink
diamonds
spilled across
the windowsill.
Squirrels
stutter across
new snow, leave
complicated tracks.
Oh, why have you
left me so
cold and alone?

Earthenware

It’s pleasant here among the dead,
here beneath the ancient trees
that drift and whisper overhead,
to stroll the polished privacies,

these aisles and avenues to which
the sleepers never thought to come;
young or old, poor or rich,
all our roads meander home.

I love the weather-blackened smiles
of pensive angels, the ghost of mirth
at those who come to reconcile
Forever with the rooted earth,

but I come for dates and names,
to see the slow erosion cull
chiseled edges, as earth reclaims
her stone for proper burial.

“AMANDA,” a small one says, in rose,
a participle unadorned:
“Beloved,” her curls and calicos
are here for centuries to mourn.

Down the hill, another one,
chipped out and carved by hand,
with a horseshoe nail: “INFENT SON.”
To see it is to understand.

It’s why we came, no? It’s clear
that not a single thing will stay
for very long, our works, our fears,
our very stones will melt away.

All we make our mountains of
is chips, shards of earthenware.
Nothing will be left but love,
as insubstantial as the air.

My Uncle

Joe used to
say, Kid, live
fast, die young,
and have a
beautiful
corpse, which I
knew he’d got
from some old
movie full
of black and
white bookies,
broads and bars,
but that's what
he always
used to say,
and he did,
except for
the last part,
about which
the less said
the better,
but, as he
also used
to like to
say, two out
of three ain’t
too bad.