Spy in the House of Love

Are you a spy in the House of Love,

Careful to erase evidence

   of your obsessive betrayals?

I am. 

Doing things I'm ashamed of--(why?)

There's no other term--

In the workshop, during quiet trips 

   to the bathroom, wherever. 

On the street,

Sitting at the table, 

In my mind...

Perhaps she is, too--

Both of us in the same household--

Behind our facades--

Unbeknownst to each other,

Awaiting mutual discovery. 

Depends Which Window

This morning I woke up and worried

   about money and about my health;

It looks like the land purchase 

   is going through next door, 

   and that will tie up a bundle.

It is a good bet on the future...

   but on the other hand there could be some

   medical expenses coming up:

Lately, keratosis has reared its ugly head

   all over my back, and

   what with that and the tiny cancers

   I recently had removed--

Not to mention the uncontrollable

   trembling lip--Parkinson's? 

Pick your own ending to that story.

And then my wife appears at the doorway

   after strolling through the patio from her bed, 

   encouraging the flowers,

   bringing her sweetness and light--

An account of me chatting and chuckling 

   through last night's dreams--

   affirming that there must be some

Levity, somewhere inside--

Bringing a more sanguine balance.

 

This Morning #155

This morning I found myself with my head 

   bent over the keyboard, moaning 

   in an aggrieved, exaggerated manner: 

"Quit fuckin with me, man, 

   quit fuckin with me."

  

Birds!

Birds!

Roosters! You know what to do!

    It's a comfort to hear your honesty.

Crows! Grackles! We need your guidance for the Migration.

Parrots, quit your squabbling!

Sparrows, take the flank.
    

At Least a Semblance

I was so glib about death a decade ago 

     in my mid-sixties,
Even with cancers and mom dying.

Now Death is another occupant in our house,
     and here we are, 

     all together,

     partners 'til the end.

     

We both know that I'm in better shape than you,

     although there's always room for irony in

Who is predeceased and who is left behind.

But whichever one of us goes first--
     This being the end game--

Doesn't that call for a new level of truth

On which to usher in the final stage?

Are we so afraid of losing a hard-won balance?

Or is it just me?

Just me holding back:
Shying away from the honest edge

      we once had,
Not hazarding a fall from this semblance

      of whole heartedness,
      Figuring, I guess, there'll always be time.

That at least one of us will know for sure

     when the absolute becomes imminent.

Will it feel right then--even possible--to finally, 

     once again, bare my soul before you?

     Crawl naked, holding hands, and nearly destroyed 

     into the lacuna of breathlessness 

     before the end. 

That's something to pray for...

    [Nearly three years later, circumstances 

    lead us in the direction of this prayer.]

Found Barefoot on a Winter Beach

Elderly man

Found dead
On local beach
This morning,
Barefoot.

Half in-half out
Of the water,

That much is known;
Heart attack suspected.

A few hours later
I walked by the site
Of his body's discovery--
Part of my regular route.

Nothing seemed different.

You’ve got to think,
Though,
Of that man's last moments alive--

Taking off his shoes
To feel the surf
And sand
Around his feet--
The bracing cold and wet
Of the abiding sea.

Did it seem--for him--

Like an eternity passed
During those last sensations
Before he lost them all?

I believe it's almost a slander 

That the next day

In the morning paper
They were calling his death
A suicide.

Walking into the lapping waves--

Bringing water to water--

Perhaps he just wanted

To become one, once again, 

With Nature.

Wear Signs of the Struggle Lightly?

For reasons having nothing to do 

With the intention of the author,
That slogan "Wear Signs of the Struggle Lightly"

--a chuckle-headed platitude, if I ever heard one--

regardless, it popped into my head 

While reflecting on a New Yorker article
I'd read in bed the night before.

The essay was written by a well-regarded author 

While gazing out a window of his
Ancestral homestead--
a New Hampshire farm.

His ruminations
Are anchored
By the vision of an old barn,
Its roof recently jury-rigged
To prevent collapse--
A hasty repair that, even so, he knows
Will see him out.

The poet spends most of his time now
At this old window,
Watching seasons change
As he thinks about past
Generations of relatives, bodies
Now occupying an immaterial dimension
Around this durable,
Timber-built house.

The image his words evoke in me,
However, is not of some same blood
Concentrated on a few
New England acres
For over two hundred years.

Hell,
Back half that far
My folks were scattered
Over half the Midwest--
Carpenters and grocers,
Dirt farmers,
Half-breeds.

No,
My thoughts, as
the poet lets me
Look through his eyes, are,
Unaccountably,
Of the wood--

The wood that's framing that window,
Its mullions and transoms,

As well as all the doors, and
Wainscoting in the dining room,
Polished pine floors,
Finely grained and thigh-thick
Hewn hardwood beams.
They're of wood!

Moss-backed, rotting in the barn,
Or growing old on a dry and
Amputee oak out toward the edge
Of the yard.

I imagine blackened,
Shredding bark of an ancient
Wisteria stretching, straining,
Gnarling up the front porch.

I can see graying cedar
Fence posts sporting
Polyps of fungi,
Disintegrating into earth.

We take all this wood for granted,
Harshly prune, poison and cut,
Pulp and overuse it,
Scratch our initials
Into its trunk.

Yet, unaccountably,
Thankfully, for us
There'll always be
A feeling of sympathy
Emanating deeply
From the wood.

So,
"Wear Signs of the Struggle Lightly"?
I don't think so.
That sounds like
Some sophistic way of thinking,
That's neither the way of wood
Nor human.

We both support, and bear our scars,
Bend, wrinkle and decay with time
Until we reach the ground, and beyond:
It's our nature.

"Wear Signs of the Struggle Proudly"
Is more like it.