Hydrologically Speaking
The river bails itself out
daily, exposing its mud
to the harsh critique of the sun.
Perch and bluegills flop around,
but the river refills itself
before the fish drown in air.
I like to watch this process,
which occurs at noon when
people are lunching in the park
beside the river, their soft drinks
and sandwiches refueling them
to face the long hot afternoon.
July wears a thick woolen mask
to conceal its cruel intentions.
Sometimes it tosses up storms
that break the trees and blame
the human race for defacing
the planet weather tries to smooth.
The river doesn’t think but acts,
draining itself downstream while
turtles, frogs, and herons gaze
into themselves for a moment
so evolved and retrospective
my simple mind can’t match it.
Your Noon Book
In your noon book you sketch people
walking their dogs, eating lunch
from paper bags, raking trash
in the little park by the river.
You only draw at midday
because the hard light’s truthful
and reveals the wrinkles in which
people fold themselves away.
You catch the police sneering
at a heavy woman’s efforts
to carry groceries to her car.
You depict the owner of two
blocks of storefronts collecting
plastic bottles to recycle.
You noon book thickens with knowledge,
pages flopping like layers of fat.
Someday a winsome curator
will neatly detach those pages
and frame them for the world to see
how gently you’ve libeled it.
Everyone will admire your lines,
crisp as animal tracks, but some
will doubt that the world you created
overlaps ours at any point.
Out Toward the Island
The blue mist of sailing muddles
a world of writing on water.
Drag your hand like an anchor
and feel the impossible weight
of five hundred and thirty-eight
million cubic miles of ocean.
How could anyone scribble
on such a primal creation?
Every word would be blasphemy,
although reinforced by the flex
of fresh and expensive canvas.
You look otter-slick in Lycra
clinging to every detail.
But your name means nothing to sharks
cruising, tracing our wake toward
the island where the famous painter
exiles himself every summer.
If I can keep the boat from luffing
we can wave as we pass his house
and maybe he’ll see and wave back.
The blue is blinding but true.
The sails flap and shudder as wind
crawls over the curved horizon,
proving that everything’s round.
The Country of Pointed Firs
Riding last night’s thunderstorm,
Sarah Orne Jewett arrived
to collect the money I owed her.
Royalties for reading her one
great book over and over
until the words fell from the page.
She collected her cash and left
in a huff of heaving evergreens.
At dawn I discover a hole
burned through my wallet and ringed
with blood. I should call the police
and show them the evidence,
but they’ve probably never heard
of Sarah Orne Jewett, never
read The Country of Pointed Firs,
never had a ghost purloin
forty dollars in fives and tens
and leave a symbolic wound.
More rain coming. The wind
tastes of the Atlantic Ocean,
sixty miles away. The islands
of Maine go adrift. And the face
of the writer, sepia and stern,
encourages sultry weather.
Vermont Floods Receding
Meeting you for coffee and chat
at White River Junction opens
dim-lit corridors down which
figures drift in ghostly charade.
You became so famous your hands,
cast in bronze, grace a museum.
You turned down propositions
from the men who own the world.
Now we meet after many years
discolored, torn, and discarded
in the wake of tropical storms
flooding Vermont’s small valleys.
Your death neither shocked nor
dismayed me, but when you dialed
my actual phone number I cried
because I knew you’d forsaken
the torso I wanted to sculpt.
We sit at a table draped
in your favorite colors. You look
as earthy as I remember you.
But the world swims in your gaze
because you accepted the rain
the way others accept a savior,
swallowing the self in the process.
The Seed that Never Sprouts
Harsh summer days undulate
to shed their vicious snake skins.
Thunder reiterates. Hard rain
torments yet eases the gardens.
You unlimber with wheelbarrows
and the hoe my grandfather left
when he climbed the climbable sky.
I prefer scouting the village
for life stories best left untold.
I can read them in gray faces
the sun never strikes with its wands.
I haven’t met a roller
of big cigars for many years.
I haven’t shaken political hands
since the last election fizzled.
But here at home I’ve seen you
prod the earth to receives the seed
that never sprouts. I’ve seen you
prune bushes that shun your touch.
Why shouldn’t I scribble plots
that shame our friends and neighbors?
I’ve already ghostwritten our lives
on page after page of wood pulp
in cursive too clumsy to read.
