SOME SECRET GARDEN

  

To us the winter’s end is signified

By Hylas croaking from the budding trees,

Their song like sleigh bells, after having climbed

From hibernation underneath the leaves

And broken branches toward the sunny heights,

Their vocal sacs swelled up with evening air.

Their chorus chants of such romantic nights

As you and I remember, when our care

Was for some secret garden and embrace,

Where what we took to be our hearts and minds

Succumbed to Nature and pursued a trace

Of fleeting passion as we pulsed through time.

We dreamed it in the ice of our repose,

Our sleigh bells frozen underneath the snow.

 

CREME-FILLED DONUTS

  

Did you and I finally

have a truce when we ate

the last two creme-filled donuts?

 

Or was it a moment’s relapse,

into what we thought we knew

before we thought we knew each other?

 

Our little chat alone,

with an empty box between us,

at a crumb-sprinkled table in the lunchroom.

 

How long will the taste

of those pastries be with us,

once our tongues are free to disagree?

 ANOTHER BEAUTIFUL DAY

  

He read her diary after she passed on,

Her name recorded in the Book of Life,

And started writing where she had left off.

 

He wrote what had occurred from day to day,

As though she too were reading, starting with

“Another beautiful day”—her usual words,

Regardless of the weather.

                                           He would note

The visits from the children or from friends,

The gossip from the church, or little things

Only they two might know; for sixty years

Of married life beholds a world to share

In every mundane scene.

                                        He wrote, “Today,

The daffodils are nodding in the yard.

My darling, they are blooming just for you.”

 

A PEDESTRIAN PAUSES ON THE PAVEMENT IN REVERIE

 

 This morning a heavy, heavy thought

seems to be weighing down on me.

 

I took it for a walk in a plastic bag,

and everyone I met seemed to feel it too.

 

I said to them, apropos of nothing:

“Forgive me, I’m not myself today.”

 

We presuppose a massive solidity

above us, below us:

 

Concrete slabs covering dirt and clay,

The waters of the firmament there in the Bible. 

 

You have often walked on this street before,

but the pavement never fell beneath your feet before.

 

How many times must one look down

before one can see the sky?

 

We live our lives spontaneously anyway,

even at the risk of plagiary.

 

But is it theft to breath a breath of air,

like everyone else does?

 

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,

maybe you shouldn’t be so quick to take me to court!

 

And maybe I shouldn’t jump to conclusions

about my supposed creativity.

 

It’s all done with mirrors, you see.

There was no beginning, and this is the end.

 

Forgive me, I’m not myself today—

I’m nothing but my own reflection.

 

PRELUDE TO PRELUDE

  

What paradox! What irony!

That piece at which you toiled away

For most of your career,

Postponing, revising,

Meticulously assessing

In light of what you planned—

That prelude to your masterpiece

Turned out to be the very thing

For which you were preparing!

And so it is that every life

Is prelude to itself:

Every death the publication

Of ones magnum opus.

This is the human condition.

 

     SECRET SHOPPER

  

I browse in antique shops but never buy.

I’m always searching there for something old,

But seldom find what’s old enough to try.

 

Neglect, patina, ambiance I crave, —

The sense of things that were so modern once,

And now are untold stories in the grave.

 

You won’t catch me shoplifting and emboldened.

Too slick for that, I stash goods in my mind:

My head’s chock full of oddities unstolen.

 

Antique myself I find it suits my ways

To gravitate toward things Sub specie

Aeternitatis, as the Ancients say.

 

So when you stop me on my way back out,

Don’t think you’ll nail me with the loot in hand.

Feel free to frisk me if you’ve any doubt.

 

I’m your best patron, take my word or not!

Though should you meet another who’s like me,

He’ll tell you what I’ve told you, on the spot.

 

THEY CALLED HIM PAP, FOR SHORT

 

 On the parlor wall—

There my grandfather’s father

Held court from the grave.

It was a ‘time exposure” photograph,

Composing him as he posed.

 

He had piercing eyes.

Before he purchased the farm,

He was employed there—

He was the slaves’ overseer.

More than that, we knew nothing.

 

We were just children.

What did we know about slaves?

Life seemed idyllic;

But we didn’t want to play

In that room, without adults.

 

Quite enough it was

That his soul had burned its gaze

Through time’s windowpane—

That we feared his dominion,

Recoiled from his cruel stillness.