i don’t know
he says to himself
about nothing in particular
and then smiles
for he knows
for once he’s right
(February 25, 2026)
Category: contentment
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Still Point
by
Ritual consoles
through repetitions solace:
“I’ve been here before.”
(August 16, 2025)
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Our two dogs scuffle loudly at my feet.
Curtains flutter in the window near me.
The afternoon has suddenly grown late.
I do not like the book I am reading,
I put it down and pick up another.
It is one I’ve read before: poetry,
so it’s like I’ve never read it at all.
“the mind and the poem are all apiece”
A few weeks later than they did last year,the roses have begun to bloom again.
Though, perhaps not, my memory follows
its own soft path through the rooms of the house.
The dogs with their play tussle forgotten
curl in the corner upon each other.
(April 1, 2025)
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The chihuahua pup desires in again.
He curtly scratches the sliding door glass,
then stares impatiently into the house.
His alert ears twitch and turn like radar
testing the distant reaches of the house
for his dull-witted human’s slow approach.
Then there I am. He wags his approval
then prances past to quickly patrol the house.
My slow days consist of subtle patterns,mostly woven through the minutiae of
the dog’s daily routines. He calmly herds
me about as I move from room to room,
sitting patiently nearby as I read,
or attempt to write about happiness.
(September 19, 2024)
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From the back porch,
with a few winter evenings left,
a small flock of starlings,
perhaps three dozen or so,
murmur quickly above the trees,
turn above the park
as in a parting gesture,
and vanish without a trace.
Aching from yard work,
no matter how small,
I sit on the back patio
and slowly dissolve into the sky,
where the moon follows the sun
into the west trailed by Venus.
(March 13, 2024) -
I used to say I taught nothing:
we read; we wrote; the practice,
the process— the means not the end.
Now closer to my end, I still sayI do nothing, though busy all day
with nothing but this or that.
(March 7, 2024)
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Outside in a bare tree,
the wind chime rings softly
in the cool northern breeze.
The old mantle clock chimes
the approximate hour
slowing a tad each day
if left to its own wiles.
I forget what day it is
and must remind myself
in order to keep up—
since friends and family
grow concerned when I fall
out of sync with their world.
The new puppy runs wild
across the back yard
patrolling the fence line
for oblivious squirrels
while the older dog basks
in the afternoon sun.
(January 31, 2024)
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bare branches lace the grey sky to the ground
as the rain continues into the day
again I wait in a doctor’s office
an event more often than not these days
but what can I say I’m no longer young
outside people drive to work through the rain
I still rise long before the sun rises
as I did for the last thirty-four years
I take naps now instead of commuting
I like that I have nothing much to do
that must be done on someone else’s time
my day’s filled with dogs and poetry
both of which provide a steady rhythm
more suited to the beating of my heart
(January 26, 2024)
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I don’t see finishing another book by the end of the year. So here is a list of the books I finished this year. I always add finished because I often stop reading books for various reasons: 1)I forget where I put them, and then when I find them I don’t care anymore; 2) I lose interest; 3) I find the book tiresome, or obvious;4) the book is dreadful; 5) I become distracted and start reading something else. I also add finished as a qualifier, because I sometimes suspect people’s list of books read is more about competition (LOOK, I’ve read a bunch more books than you!) than it is about reading what you want to read. So, here is my list: 2023 books
The Wasteland: a biography of a poem by Matthew Hollis
Black No More by George Schuyler
10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World by Elif Shafak
The Needle’s Eye by Fanny Howe
Bridge of Sighs by Richard Russo
Less by Andrew Sean Green
When We Were Orphans by Kazaa Ishiguro
Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond
The writing Life by Annie Dillard
The Dance Most of All by Jack Gilbert
The Overstory by Richard Powers
Forget the Alamo by Burrough, Tomlinson, and Stanford
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
Finalists by Rae Armantrout
Pierre Reverdy Selected Poems translated by Kenneth Rexroth
Gasoline by Gregory Corso.
Breathing the Water by Denise Levertov
Fully Empowered by Pablo Neruda
Flower Wreath Hill, later poems by Kenneth Rexroth
Four Unposted Letters to Catherine by Laura Riding
The Heat Will Kill You First by Jeff Goodell
The Now by Albert Goldbarth
Fathers and Children by Ivan Turgenev
The Fraud by Zadie Smith
Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Poetry as Insurgent Art by Laurence Ferlinghetti
An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro
Good Night, Irene by Luis Alberto Urrea
Diving Into the Wreck by Adrienne Rich
Hermetic Definition by H.D.
Singing at the Gates by Jimmy Santiago Baca
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there is no time now
I no longer need to be
somewhere else but here
(September 5, 2023)
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I can no longer see
consequence. I walk home
and everyone has changed.
I feel the same now as
I did when I was nine:
ignorant and naive—
and unaware of both.
Like crows among the dead,
I worry our future.
When I take my glasses
off, rooms blur with motion.
I find comfort in that
like our bed’s warmth after
you have left for the day.
(March 21, 2023)
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As if she has been here for millennia
calmly chewing grass, the buffalo stands
in an open field below the mountain.
Aware of the biting fly and herself,
but little else, she still provides so much
into the life of the poorest village.
What difference can the monk’s laughter make
to her as it echoes through the valley?
(May 14, 2022)
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