For My Wife at 64
SamplerAutumn’s at hand, and I recollect how you combed every wisp
of weed from your garden in a pair of separate Septembers, each one
for a different child’s
wedding here. Though the mess came back too soon–
pigweed, purslane, vetch–…
Mere Humans
SamplerTink shouted, “Did you hear my bad news?” I turned
from bucking up firewood and killed the engine.
How different he looked, our tough old bantam
neighbor– a rascal, but stolid as stone.
Here stood a suddenly tinier version.
No one…
Scarlet/Indigo
Sampler... strength in what remains ...
–Intimations of Immortality
By the pond, a maple
reddens already,
in middle August.
Impossible:
it still should be summer.
Fall’s upon us,
most of the grandchildren
back at their schools,
moved…
Open Questions
SamplerOn becoming my state’s poet laureate, I made it my mission to visit as many of its community libraries as I could. I paid many, many such visits, and savored each and all. Certain colleagues at the “prestige” colleges where I taught for…
Inspiration
Sampler(an excerpt from my selected newspaper columns as poet laureate, to be published in autumn 2020 as Seen from All Angles: Lyric Everyday Life)
I have tried—with what I consider good reason—not to talk much about my own poetry in these…
Abattoir Time
SamplerThe widower pushed the tailgate shut and fell.
The two sounds –click and thud– seemed synchrony,
As if one in fact were function of the other.
The red calf, bound for veal in the pickup's bed,
Looked rearward over his shoulder. No one…