Daylight Savings

Poems composed during a brief visit to my farmhouse:

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March 3

Late winter loosens
Snow softens in shaded woods
Watershed waiting.

Route 214

Sleet on the Clove road
Barred owls calling through twilight
Snowdrifts reach for stars.

Sixty-Five

Suddenly it’s March—
Grilled cheese with Mr. B. B.
We eat in the sun.

Spring Entering My House

Warm windowsills teem
Ladybugs wake in the walls
Spring finding the cracks.

Thaw

Ice slackens its hold
Floes drift with the Hudson tide
Sea moving northward.

Runoff

Stony Clove wakes up
Esopus and Hudson rise
Water, everywhere.

Daylight Savings

Light staying longer
Rivers loud in ruddy beds
Scent of rain returns.

28 hr (1,874 mi) via I-80 W

Poems composed on the drive from New York to Colorado:

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Ohio

Ski bro at the pump—
Jersey plates, puffy jacket,
knowing nod ensues.

Presidential

Birthplace of Lincoln—
green signs lecture as we drive.
Birthplace of Reagan.

Work Zones

Chevrons flash orange.
Arteries of asphalt squeeze;
neon hazards glow.

Iowa

Turbines rake grey sky.
Billboards preach roadside gospel—
America shrugs.

Accident

Semi on its side,
tipped like a child’s toy truck—
steel guts glint in sun.

Ovid, CO

Metamorphosis:
state lines shift, the earth stays flat—
Nebraska, but not.

Used To Be August

After the first frost:

Hoar

Yard sighs, mother-gray;
brittle blades wake silver-spined—
the forest shudders.

Mr. B. B. Says

“Used to be August,”
he sighs of October rime—
“frost’s gone by lunch now.”

Layers

Fog, river’s cashmere;
Hudson layers for the cold—
winter waves hello.

Dry Suit Season

Neoprene to wool—
paddle will soon be ski pole;
make sure zippers close.

Denning

Bears nose through the duff;
out back, a tarp snaps in wind—
snow hums in the pines.

Marine Forecast

Checking the forecast:

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Weather

Gale warning offshore;
complex low keeps on turning
somewhere off Greenland.

Wind

South wind to ten knots—
rain with gusts up to thirty;
seas six to ten feet.

Small Craft Advisory

Another cold front
tightens over the waters—
small craft have been warned.

Fog

Southerlies rising;
patch fog after midnight—
showers at daybreak.

Pressure

High pressure building
behind the pushing cold front—
seas around two feet.

Fetch / Swell

Fetch laid to the east;
swell wraps around Monhegan,
the storm still speaking.

Wildlife Tour

A four-hour experience:

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Pemaquid Point

Where two worlds once met—
stone hearths, shell heaps, storming tides.
Still, the light endures.

Seals

Pod beached on the ledge;
one swims up like he owns us—
the ambassador.

Great Whites

Eyes scan the water;
“Not common around here,” then—
Sharktivity pings.

Porpoises

Pinniped breath nears,
circling bright-eyed kayakers—
click-magic captured.

Birds of Prey

Osprey! And eagle!
We point out nests like they’re ours.
The birds just ignore.

Cormorant

Deep-diving swimmer—
Darwin gave up airborne bones
for fishing prowess.

Puffins

Will we see puffins?
Nope. Maybe a guillemot.
Definitely gulls.

Terns

Tiny sky scissors—
one lifetime’s flight slowly cuts
a path to the moon.

Lion’s Mane

Flame without a heart;
invertebrate from away,
ghost beneath my boat.

Whales

Minke, humpback, right—
hunted where tourists now glide,
they still sing offshore.

28 hr (1,873.3 mi) via I-80 E

Poems composed on the drive from Colorado to New York:

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Mile 1

My life in a box
at seventy miles an hour—
winter home recedes.

Mile 74

Road signs like old friends,
markers of seasonal life—
one journey, two homes.

Mile 562

Flatness, everywhere.
Time itself has leveled out—
must be Nebraska.

Mile 1487

Another podcast.
“Ohio,” GPS laughs—
nine hours to go.

Mile 1776

Road steams with insects;
even headlights feel soggy—
“welcome back, East Coast.”