I remember tracing
Across the pale silvery worlds
Of sharpened sounds
Lit by January moons.
.
Curse you,
Impatient rain,
And how you fidget!
.
Casting this land
Into a great serpentine lapse,
Of water and light
With everything sparkling
On a mid-winter’s night.
I cannot counter the edge,
Remarkable, memorable, inexorable
In an odd persistence that wanes in it’s coming.
I cannot shape this space.
Green years, short months and how the day suddenly curves away.
The center is far removed from place and time. Eyes turning to the bright prospects of hard lines on skies.
I cannot yield to grace, as the soft illusions of ease tempt me into the chilled waters.
Your Hands:
Coaxing stories from clouds and rocks
And other things.
Tales gliding along the contours
Of a barely wavering joy.
.
If I could pilfer your burdens,
And somehow build trees:
Respite from the sudden monopolies of Spring.
Here,
Moored
By the soft calling turns
Of a river now purposed by rain,
We can linger in that patient lapse
Between the miseries of drought
And the sudden electricity of flood.
.
The Copenhagen-spitting sages of Weymouth,
And the oared helmsmen at High Rock,
Hiding in their closet cigarettes,
Share chit chat smiles of angst
In the nervous dawn light
While the Chinook-crazed bankies
Debate spoon and roe.
.
And a distant figure
Heaves arcing bright lines
Through shadowy secret boils
And long greasy slicks
In a solitary reverie
Of far-fetched feathered hopes.
.
This is far removed
From the life-gone-easy days of,
say, June,
The routines of August,
Or the Sunday light
After a passing April rain
Reminded us all things
Eventually come back to this time.
Amazing how a river can hold up
An entire town with its soft calling turns,
In those patient lapses between
The long miseries of drought
and the hasty electricity of flood.
.
This town,
Anonymous lines,
Maps of hope and glee
All folded into once brightly colored boxes.
Now, the intricate creases of lives unwound,
Pressed by the tales of neighbors
On a winter night suddenly come early
And sharpened by rain
At the far side of a dead end court.
.
The long river, now purposed by rain,
Flows through my hands,
Fingers touching current,
Holding it like a breath.
.
The sound of water is everywhere.
I can see hands from here,
Pulling years away from the reach of all these new places,
Savoring tarnished doors,
Held open,
In the wet air of night avenues,
Smoky corners
And back seat make outs.
.
I can see your mom on Sunday,
Toiled indifference to our follies,
Our moves to a life so big,
Deftly held in a trembling hand.
.
“Can I see you again?”
Like the buses at the intersection,
Moving to scheduled vistas
Taken like snapshots
From another overpass
With trains underneath
And billowing April clouds
Against the blue velvet of a painting
Hanging on the wall of a house
On some street at the edge of town.
Wild, curly haired kids still chase candy-colored rocks
Across old sea floors, dotted with dandelions,
And the long yawn of summer gone stale,
All gathered up, into a lone rusty pail.
.
This,
After swings in trees,
and secret swimming holes,
down long, easy roads,
Soothed in watermelon dreams,
While holding hands, with our heads in circles, catching the sky.
Her eyes, sparkling stars of night and oceans blue,
Whisper ice cream cones and a first kiss, too.
.
Now, sun in smoke, searing
Cicadas singing,
That long dusty road of angst and dearth
All dried and sharp,
Our once cherished mirth.
.
Hurry!
Bring us giddy hopes of weather and water,
and grand tales on the coming of storms,
Let times soon turn, and days delite
Those same stories,
Sparkling in that honey-colored light.
There were
New leaves on an old apple tree
When April broke.
.
There was
The neighbor’s hoarse laugh
Soured by beer and night,
Sharpening the point where morning
Turns the other way.
.
There are
Far off places where things are ahead
And different
Stirrings of home
In that way younger years
Can hold us in a spell.
This place,
Moored in silent copies
Of homes that fell forgotten
With new times and other stories.
.
It leans back from view,
Into dark brown shingles
Worn in sun and storm
Fallen behind and piled
Along old trees and
New Spring grass.
.
Stories of families
Broken and gone for healing,
With chit chat smiles of angst
Tossed across a gravel lot
Of broken high heels
And closet cigarettes.
.
All of it, staring across the way,
Escaping with the glances of drivers by.
Arrived,
Fresh on afternoon winds:
The turn of heads into the
Gotcha moment
When it’s all too late
To recommend the
movies any longer.
.
Matinees be damned.
Shaken Rain 