advice to my 15-year-old self
Keep writing; it defines you.
you are about to meet your wife;
she is not your current crush.
Your dad is dying.
In a couple of months, he’ll know.
It will take two years.
Except for your wife,
who you do not know yet,
no one thinks like you.
Poetry will save you
now, and again forever:
so read more, write more.
You will become who you are.
Quit German, learn Spanish.
(September 17, 2018)
a day is the same
as yet another remains–
a rock in a stream
(September 17, 2018)
The cat sleeps nearby;
I ma cold and need a nap:
the day fills with tasks.
**
Snow on bare branches
melts as fresh green buds beckon
after the sun’s light.
**
Light rain saturates
the garden after a grey week,
I write listlessly.
(September 15, 2018)
The sadness in the open rose
falls like petals to the path,
while you are somewhere else,
and I am nowhere near.
I hold on to the shreds
as a cicada’s husk
to a tree still clings
to a life not its own.
All maps are tattered
to an unstable memory–
which forms and reforms
until a landscape adheres.
Slowly I have fallen onto
a shapeless and empty road.
(September 15, 2018)
Morning light’s enough,
As my students quietly write—
How we change our world.
Young trees grow to provide shade,
As the old begin to fade.
(September 14,2018)
She moves the block to the right
slightly, turning its axis
parallel to the table’s edge.
It is now as she imagined,
arranged in her mind’s symmetry,
aligned with the larger world.
Life would be easier if only
every one would take care
of everything instead of her.
But they don’t. So she does
what she can to help
put things in their places.
Yet the world she desires
rarely mimics the world
she lives within,
and the difference grows
as roots in a forest
askew to any explanation.
(September 7, 2018)
The river runs dry,
and he has no bait
for stones. Distantly,
delusion shimmers
a claim on intimacy
somewhere beyond
the moving horizon.
He writes towards
her, casting out lines
in hopes of catching her
in a turn of phrase,
where she will see
herself, and come
to know his slow intent.
(September 7, 2018)
