Poem without words
Curl of an ache: six haiku
reblogged from Woodrat photohaiku
trail
turning dappled salamander
tail
curl
of an ache an oak
burl
one watery
eye between them
conjoined oaks
the shine of white-
haired youth
tussock moth
winding
up here
wild grapevine
ravished
by the wind
mother oak
On Sand Knob Trail
prismatic glints from a spiderweb
catching the sun
as it moves through the forest
on slow stilts
ignoring the trail
an old colliers’ road
now a deep wrinkle
through the rocks
I rest against
an enormous hemlock
and study its dead companion
scarred by woodpeckers
like a mask with a few
too many eyeholes
I take off my shoes
press my bare feet to sand
from a 410 million-year-old shore
turned to stone
distant gunshots
punctuate the silence
there’s no view at the summit
of Greenlee Mountain in the summer
only the rock oaks’
interpretive dance
moving shadows
on a slab of quartzite
a hooded warbler teaching
its young how to sing
***
Rothrock State Forest
July 26, 2024
Ex Libris
i open a book in the woods
and two ravens take flight
wind shuffles the sunset leaves
the ravens gurgle in the distance
another day breaks down
into its elements
i am trying not to rejoice
at the deaths of my enemies
the spongy moth caterpillars
decorating oaks with their corpses
they too are strangers
and sojourners in the earth
unable to limit their appetites
and stay where they land
the way an old mountain laurel
sheds its spent blossoms
and stands in a patch of what looks
from a distance like snow
Picnic
in an oak forest whispery
with caterpillar droppings
an ovenbird steps out
on her pink feet
as i drink my pink tea
of sassafras and milk
the sun slides down
a silk thread
whose absent abseiler tracks
a shadow back to its tree
a caterpillar with whiskers
as bristly as a streetcleaner
entering a dark valley
in the bark of a chestnut oak
follows it up the trunk
propelled by its gut pulsing
in sync with the prolegs
from hump to hump
driven almost literally by hunger
a body within the body
that one day will crawl out
with wings and gonads
an overwhelming urge to mate
and no mouth
the female so full of eggs
she will not be able to fly
i finish my lunch
the male ovenbird is singing
a carpenter ant goes past
carrying a splinter
Lonesome Holler
Sometimes I think the loneliness would be unbearable if I weren’t surrounded by ghosts. But seeing fireflies this early in May gives me an eerie feeling. The crescent moon is nearly alone in the sky, glimmering through a scrim of clouds. The aurora got rained out, and now the night is loud with all the voices of water as it runs off a mountain.
It occurred to me recently that in hilly country, those who are afraid of heights like me might often end up on mountaintops, because going straight up a steep hillside usually feels safest. Going sideways is scary, and downhill too perilous to contemplate. So onward means upward simply to avoid the abyss.
making the stars quake mountaintop peeper
Mothers’ Day Psalm
yours is the thorn that suckles us
the marsupial pouch in which we play king of the hill
yours is the rare orchid appointed
to a moth no one has ever seen
yours the corals whose cities shone
like nothing from a planning committee
and yours the epidemics the cancers the blights
a creativity as limitless as time and space
oh Nature soften the hearts
of all your little pharoahs
so we don’t have to overthrow them
and let those who insist you must be male
give birth through their penises
Mayday
the song comes from a long way off
slow as an old man making water
like a sort of sky
with one persistent cloud
the song brings its own weather
to a climate of fear
filling every redbreast
with territorial ambitions
until a brown thrasher
gets a hold of it and shakes
upside upside down down
get rid of it get rid of it
as the trees launch their fleets
unfurl their sails
cells vibrate in concert
each at its own pitch
a music not meant for any ears
this side of eden
where pollen still turns
our jack boots green
Brief
a sky with just one aperture
would fit in a briefcase
you’d hear it in there
clacking its beak
i miss the flesh of my flesh
lost during the pandemic
i have been drowning lady beetles
in the toilet in the sink
the oaks are dangling blossoms
before every passing breeze
green and yellow like snakes
in the old folk song
i argue all sides of a position
and call it prayer
i am sung to daily
by my followers the flies
Harrowing
an empty coal train
is rolling past a hobo camp
so many vacancies
like christ’s tomb
while the emergency room at the hospital
has no beds to spare
no windows of any kind
only an addict’s hallucinations
and a skinny old man
yelling help without the p
hell hell hell for hours
until the hospitalist snaps
out here it’s nearly easter
another winter’s worth of fossil fuels
have risen indeed
on wings of mercury
a gray fox ravaged by rabies
leaves her pelt beside the burrow
as the first hepaticas
raise their blue cups
