Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
a woodpecker’s
speckled woods
weathering novemberly
down to embers
in the soothills
of the alleghenies
where victorians went
on elegant excursions
railroad logging a hundred
summers in a day
now free to go
fluttering
muttering off
earthward
warm
worm
words
day breaks
like a wishbone
how lucky
that the longer portion
remains with us
in darkness
under the interstate
in that dull
interminable thunder
a school of salmon-
colored leaves
stream down
from trees given
scraps of now-
worthless land
a cylindrical concrete pier
is tree enough
for virginia creeper
its forked tendrils
its scarlet molt
a bit of fox grape
and now for
a fish crow’s
falsetto caw
glimpsed in passing
at seventy miles an hour
dark eyes in a pale
heart-shaped face
no longer playing
possum
and later when
i measure myself
against a massive
mossy boulder
i feel my fragility
a winter wren tut-tuts
but one helicopter breaks
a whole mountain’s silence
i get out my phone camera
still hungry to possess
a young pine caught
in a dead oak’s embrace
leaves in mid-air against
a wild tangle of limbs
clouds furthering the end-
lessness of mountains
i find the stone-walled spring
dry for the first time
descending an eroded path
deep in fallen leaves
i walk like a drunk
to avoid injury
loose-limbed and slow
resolutely unsteady
and manage to hold
the ground at bay
stiltgrass encroaches
like a bad combover
the seeds having hitchhiked in
on shoes and bike tires
the trail leads under
a fallen tree
why is it so difficult
to bow my head
and then i’m on my knees
among baby porcupines
american chestnut husks
spiny and golden
from not one but two trees
beside the trail
canopy-height and twice
as thick as my neck
with no sign of blight
no earlier dead sprouts
i take pictures to challenge
my own disbelief
amid the drama
of changing seasons
and the unreadable
gestures of aging oaks
in the silence of the mountain
i can hear my own pulse
a faint but steady
drip of water
somewhere in a hollow
under the rocks
an idyll of falling
drifting unmoored
from growing inlets
of October sky
must include the un-
remastered original
bright blue lightly
frosted weather
and a village nestled
against a mountain
the newly resurfaced road
that dead-ends at a trailhead
so the dog-walkers
can drive to the woods
so a canine snout can track
each falling leaf
while its human puzzles
over arborglyphs on a snag
where larvae came of age
and left the tree as beetles
after completing
their masterpieces
yes of course the foliage
in every shade of flame
sic transit gloria mundi
on a Tuesday afternoon
where death is life
for the leaf duff
a universe with
its own laws
inhabited by iron worms
and crescent moon millipedes
woodland jumping mice
and the shy timber rattler
basking in the middle
of a multi-use trail
its dark velvet scales
its electric buzz
covering for
a quiet getaway
through dry leaves in which
the wind also rustles
as if it were already
gray November
and dogs had noses
only for frozen gut piles
but already the deer
are hounded by lust
scrape away fallen leaves
in an agony of longing
until even the soil
speaks their name
a lexicon of scents
to which the pines contribute
losing hands
of five needles
for even evergreens
yellow with age
and the wind has
such a discriminating touch
while the oaks of course
take their sweet time
drop acorns before turning
in a depth of sky
not seen since April flowers
began spewing pollen
but if nature’s last green
is also gold
hasn’t the whole summer
been a false flag operation
and how can true colors
not intoxicate
whether burgundy or rosé
pale ale or amber
let blue jays steal the cry
of a red-tailed hawk
who’s otherwise occupied
wallowing in black and white
feathers of
an answered prayer
an eye that takes
two weeks to open
how to sleep through that
unwavering gaze
round as an infant
indifferent as a cane toad
to some appearance
of planetary conjunction
much less any hypothetical
end of life on earth
where the other eye
now dreams storms
day breaks
into increments of gold
a falling leaf flits back and forth
like a doomed moth
acorns gestate
in the throat pouch of a jay
the breeze is spicy with rot
i take deep lungfuls
nuclear armageddon
is trending on twitter
the bluestone road
seduces me again
*
each of my feet aches
in its own way
the left to take wing
the right to take root
they take me where hemlocks
pry open the rocks
and vultures drift past
without flapping
a section of trail famous
for being hard on boots
it is difficult says the guidebook
to get any rhythm going
as you step from rock
to rock
but this is the music
i grew up with
a grouse cups his wings and drums
on the skin of the air
*
distant booms
a shooting range perhaps
the sun goes in but
the yellow keeps glowing
chickadees announce my presence
in unflattering terms
to a mixed flock feeding
on mountain ash berries
a rock shifts under me
i shift with it
at a trail intersection someone
has dug a hole in the rocks
revealing the water table
its serving of birch leaves
farther along the hemlock
burnt from below
by an untended camp fire
that turned roots to charcoal
two years later it’s dead
but for one last limb
stripped down to the skeleton
for a sky burial
*
descending the flank of the ridge
i find a proper spring
yellow coral mushrooms
extend crossed fingers
the mountain can punish
moments of inattention
but i am a bad student
i walk in two places at once
a place of wings
and a place of roots
that night the moon flies
through prismatic clouds
at its brightest
and most manic
stained by the dark
beds of seas
Somehow i do still want what so many wild places also need: to burn. A periodic cleansing by fire.
meteor
this sensation
of a racing heart
1
revisiting the vista i use
for my laptop’s home screen
i meet the gaze of a hawk
hanging in the wind
right where i’m used to seeing
the icons for my apps
the rocks are cold
my thermos mug keeps burbling
2
the muffled knocks
of a pileated woodpecker
opening a new door
into an oak
shadows grow darker
as the clouds thin out
the mountain hisses
in the north wind
i start thinking what if
time never passes
and instead it is us
who pass through it
a walker’s thoughts only
make sense on foot
3
200 years and a trail
may sink into the ground
i’m at eye level
with roots now
the crisp air smells
piney and fungal
leaves are revealing
their true faces
acorns thud down
at odd moments
like the steps of someone
lost in contemplation
4
feet propped up
on my front porch railing
lean against one another
like two old drunks
my thoughts retreat behind
the parentheses of my ears
a Carolina wren chants
his teakettle song
in a house without power
the sound of the wind
appliances have stopped humming
chargers no longer glow
the masks on my walls stare
steadfastly into the darkness
i offer myself again
on the altar of sleep
everything forks and branches
you can’t get there from here
unless you go sideways first
like a knight in chess
or a long-tailed weasel
hunting in the stiltgrass
you must run out
of luck or lumber
get saved by a discount preacher
behind the barbecue shack
lose an argument
with the moss
wonder what horrors
lie hidden beneath your feet
wrapped in duct tape
sealed in mason jars
but you learn the new
bump and grind
of mountaintop draglines
or fracking rigs
the way a chainsaw mutters
between screams
how the creek can rise
from a lullaby to a roar
and wash away all
our post-industrial middens
how there’s a rambling rose
that blooms every june
in the small of the back
of beyond
