Names...

That old pine

with rippled skin

and wrinkled needles

reaches its limbs

some twenty-five feet

over the street, 

makes shade

for passers-bye,

drips what dew

it doesn’t use,

doesn’t complain

and doesn’t know

it doesn’t know

the president’s name.

**

What a wondrous thing

this turning among the leaves

that calls the eyes to heave the chest

to hold the breath—the tallest eucalyptus

rush in the hills in the skies, tower 

with the winds.

**

The shutting of a car door

in the quiet of a morning street

is more certain a sound

even than bird call; a cough,

absent-minded in an alley, 

gravel, soft crunched foot-fall,

a jacket pulled close, a chill, 

forgiven for comfort given.

Those among the things

we know as ours, in a world

there made so too.

**

Slowly reading passages

from Thoreau’s journals, culled

to elicit his thinking on the writing life, 

is like sitting at the feet of a master,

breathing the textures of prayers

uttered at the tip of his pen.

Instruction garnered not so much 

from perfections lived, as living 

deeply considered—trustworthy 

heat from a hearth well-tended.

**

“The trees have come down

to the bank to see the river

go by.”

            — HD Thoreau 1841

**

I know this, but discovered again

the big dipper high above the house. 

Late summer sky not yet black, 

the constellation takes its place, for us 

at least, not a single star caring at all 

what we call them.

**

The world at large, the universe,

never refuses a voice, takes every one 

as given, gives back each breath as next 

needed, takes in too all the lasts, 

and holds them through and through. 

What is there then in this to question ?

**

As the sun leaves, rippling layers of fog 

along the ridge, begin to join us, will come 

right down to the blanket’s edge, there 

throughout the night, watching us breathe.

**

Settled, then suggests no need

to authenticate by reference to anything 

other than itself—the poem, its words.

**

Summer leaves

carry present

future.

**

Take note of the pause

holding the courtyard, and the chill 

that drafts the window, rounds bared feet 

and ankles, draws attention to bamboo leaves’ 

gentle affirmation.