Daylight Savings
Poems composed during a brief visit to the Catskills.
―
Poems composed during a brief visit to the Catskills:
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.
―
Poems composed on the drive from New York to Colorado:
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
Waiting for the seasons to change.
―
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
I love weather.
―
Checking the forecast:
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.
―
A four-hour experience:
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.
―
Poems composed on the drive from Colorado to New York:
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.”
Southeast
Poems composed in Haines.
―
Poems composed in Haines.
Juneau
Rainforest welcome:
skunk cabbage brightens wet trails,
fog stitches the woods.
Marine Highway
Fjord currents ferry
skiers northbound for Skagway;
I will paddle back.
Haines
Hammer museum,
people exist between scars
of avalanches.
XtraTuf
Brown boots everywhere—
locals wear them like logic,
the tall ones only.
The Maul
Bear spray at my hip—
a constant, like a cell phone
with no reception.
Distillery
Whisky tastes of sea;
Alaskans drink like weather—
deep, sudden, stormy.
Mud Season
Ski school is closed.
―
Ski school is closed.
Closing Day
Tourists clear out fast.
Now the mountains hum with mud—
just the way we like.
Cheap Dinner
Snow tires still on.
Main Street maître d calls out:
“Half off for locals!”
Scene Change
Rivers rise and run—
an idea caught in between.
The thaw rushes on.
Spring Break
Poems about most of March.
―
Most of March:
Never-Evers
Magic carpet hums—
never-evers in neon
skitter like pennies.
Texas
Texas Week arrives:
time to ski fast, have some fun—
howdy, altitude.
College Kids
Skiing bikinis—
twenties spill toward the future
like snowmelt downhill.
4:00 To Town
Après hum rises—
music drifting up the slopes
like heat off spring snow.
29 hr (1,957 miles)via I-76 W and I-70 W
Poems composed on the drive from New York to Colorado.
―
Poems composed on the drive from New York to Colorado:
Orders
“Stand up every hour,”
the oncologist instructed.
Long way home ahead.
Borders
State line, then next one—
recovery marked in miles,
not medical charts.
Indie
Exit Indiana—
His mom’s thumbprints cooling slow;
we stay one hour.
Night Roads
We go half-asleep—
mercury lights, semi trucks,
lanes of passing ghosts.
Southern Route
Morning in Kansas;
no ruby slippers this time—
tap heels, keep driving.
Love’s
Love’s gas stations boast
small dog parks behind the pumps.
We stop at them all.