1957

The whole thing mystified me at age fifteen. Knocking on eighty’s door, I’m a lot less mystified. I’m less troubled too, though I must allow that the event still leaves me strangely uneasy. I’d been walking back from the school ball…

Via Negativa

He beholds a ragged windrow of snow, dull remnant, and wonders if drink or dope might not kiss him and make him better. The writer knows they wouldn’t, couldn’t, or hopes he knows it, hopes he’ll recall the gloom and sometimes utter…

I Arrive at the Scene

All of a sudden, a crowd, most of us pretty much strangers, which seems to me– well, strange: our village and others here in this stretch of valley are tiny. But John, who’s been the chief of the volunteer fire department for years,…

Spring Poem in the Season of Corona

Last night, our pond reclaimed a foot from its ice. New water winks blue-green, and blackbirds shriek From wire and weed. It’s good to be out. Two boys Hike by me at social distance. Each breeze-tossed leaf Looks as crisp and twitchy…

Augury

I can’t explain, but it’s true. At ten years old, I beheld the lemon and slate of the slender fish, flashing below the surface. My father told me to settle back: my gawking over the gunwale rocked our canoe, E.M. White Guide’s Model…

For My Wife at 64

Autumn’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–…