on the end of poetry

(lakeside)

and it turns out water
is only water. it may slosh
and splash, undulate, crash
and okay, sparkle, shimmer
gleam gold. or gray
in shadow, green in light
right down to the rocks
it caresses, rounding
here, near the shore—
or out there, sucking sand.
see, the dog will flail and swim
kicking up white froth, biting hard
at each wave (they never cease)
long tongue licking water
long-legged deliberate splash.
(no creature more prosaic
than a dog) so here I sit, done
with words. why bother noting
it dazzles? the boats drone on
and past, in deeper blue
seagulls scatter

The Coming of the Dog

So. In a low season, tag-end of winter
and time on our hands (an illusion), did we
feel two teens still at home, two rodents, a cat
not enough? Not that our love couldn’t stretch so
far. Did we need to give without guilt or fear
of spoilage? (a softening too soon into
grandparent-mind, accepting these unfinished
offspring as imperfect, and by our own fault.)

We begin again. Well. She knows a few things
about respecting furniture, sleeping through
the shortening nights. But see, how she needs me
and how I fail again in wrestling, running,
being best friend. Don’t say, unconditional
love. I am more than proof against those brown eyes,
their eloquent pleas.

life is the network

it began with the rabbit
or with cutting down the shrub
roots bound in clay earthworms somehow
nourishing leafbud wet-scent soil
or with the motionless toad or
single butterfly plum-blossom hunting

with seedling kale chewed to the nub!
hyacinths’ sloped shoulders concentrating
rain-perfume or it began with
dog quivering the sudden storm
muscles smooth-bunched mud-grass torn
with instinct the terror scream

and now the rabbit
smaller than my two palms together
unforgiven for greengarden theft yet how
our hearts all race to collision
fruitless attempts to separate
life-sharp soft spring air

 

Title inspired by this article from NPR.