Three Small Poems

Solitude

He strayed along the edges

Of fields made mirrors by rain.

He paused beside the hedges.

He left behind the lanes

That lead out to the towns,

And sought instead the place

Where sunlight makes a pause

Upon earths’ wrinkled face—

Filling up the hollows

Carved out by cold, black creeks

Whose birth’s beneath the ground.

Of all the things which speak,

He understood people the least;

Far less than quiet woods—

The wind’s tearing race,

The stars’ quick dancing moods.

March Morning

Above the piled dishes—

apple-green, gold, and red

enough to set the kitchen window ablaze,

to block

the view of battered fences:

A Crepe Myrtle left to grow

full and sprawling;

A moment in Spring

That looked, in all its blood-red brilliancy,

As if its roots were burrowed into, threading through,

a different time and season.

Against Boredom

A minute. Two. Then three.

The moments line up in rows.

They march in single file.

A blur is all that shows.

The room looks like it does

Every day at three.

A room with mirrors both

Before and behind-I see

An endless repetition

Of scenes play out in my mind.

Lift up a finger first.

Copied before and behind.

And yet, there on the windowsill,

Just landed in the seeds

I set out for him, just jumped

up from out the weeds,

A finch with feathers flame-

Laced in a crown upon his head;

Opal fire within brown earth.

I take back what it was I said.