Heart’s Aflutter
Forgive me if I seem a nutter,
the way I mumble, moon, and mutter,
but I can’t help my palpitating
when my heart is all aflutter.
Pardon that I cling to what’re
rhymes as rife with fat as butter—
maybe even nauseating—
but my heart is all aflutter.
Please absolve me when I putter
aimlessly, and stammer, stutter,
stumble as I’m indicating
that my heart is all aflutter!
Evening among the Stones
Under cedars, in the beeches
in the garden’s deepest reaches,
sing the crickets and the sparrows,
robins, and the draught that harrows
every hollow of the windy, wooded hill…
Where those sleepers are reclining,
and above their tombs, repining,
kneel the loves they left behind them,
who return here yet to find them
and commune again together, sweetly, still…
As the honeysuckle flowers
lull away the weary hours,
here all spirits, in communion
so with nature, find reunion
in the waning light of afternoons at ease…
With the daylight, sadness dimming
like this lake where swans go swimming
through the lilies as its silver
mirror dims, goes dark forever,
souls may meet again as often as they please…
Short bursts of breeze in the long leaves,
the slightest of eddies as though
their pulse were pumping actual red cells
through the tall margins of the field—
Likelier that their real nature as flammable,
short-lived bursts of vigorous and
violent life, destined to flame
up, out, leap to cosmic oblivion, and die—
Are these our guides, or are
they mirrors of the flimsy, volatile existence
that we share? Only there, in
the margins of the field, do the flames
and shadows of our being have
a moment’s sway, for better or for worse,
of honesty out in the sun. Only there,
where the grass grows tall and yet
has not the strength or
depth of root to thrive, do we
see how little of the energy
with which we’d credited ourselves
really shines for longer than
a short, weedy season, bending
this way, bending that, and sparking
into sudden flares of incandescent
death
before returning to earth,
extinguished without
having distinguished ourselves, yet still
flying a bold red flag as if
we were something more.
Discoverer Discovered
Should a biologist be lost
in untracked wilderness, the cost
might be more palatable when
she found a beast that other men
and women hadn’t seen before:
she’d get the credit, and what’s more,
it would be named for her as well,
should she record her findings. Swell
as documenting her great find
in journals she would leave behind,
posterity could also learn
another feature that, in turn,
she mightn’t think the creature’s worst,
considering she’d met it first—
had any notes so ably writ
been found; they’d been consumed by it.
The pages must’ve tasted great,
were they all that the creature ate,
but after her, they were dessert.
Hope getting eaten didn’t hurt.
World-Weary, or Geologically Tired…
If you wake me at an hour too far ante-meridian,
I’m sorry, but my heart is dark and harder than obsidian—
But if you keep me up too late and sleepless in the night,
It’s just as likely I will have a heart of anthracite.
While we were drawing in the studio where I taught—years ago—there were difficulties that came as much from my frustrated and inadequate attempts to teach as from the normal technical complexities of drawing well and the imperfect ability of any non-superhuman to master them instantly even if I had been a great teacher. But there were also moments of surprisingly peaceful, encouraging, engaging grace. A fair microcosm in this way, I suppose, of learning throughout life.
…I’m perfectly able to make a mess out of things all by myself!
Art-Colored Glasses 