Waiting \ December Gifts

Alan: Alone, alone, alone... lonely.

Waiting

                         for Nancy

I expected you home

before now.  All that long way

from Halifax, the roads icy maybe,

and empty at night.

When does concern become worry?

Worry take action?

I’ve enjoyed my time here,

alone with one dog and two cats,

reading Ryōkan, gentle sounds of the woodstove

like his breathing of pines under Mt. Kugami

or drip of dewy eaves in the bamboo grove,

so long ago.

Alone enough.

Now the dinner I made for the two of us,

uneaten, grows cold.

Nancy: A year of gifts, a life of gifts acknowledged.

December Gifts

The tide in the high marsh,

the low sun, slow to stand over the ridge,

the sea smoke . . . 

I went out wanting the year to turn,

and turned myself instead, turned back

to today, glad to have received

water, light, frost blooming on dry stems.

December \ The Old Woman Refuses

Alan: Like the crows, we forage where we can, find what we can, and await the cold.

December

Grass

still green on the slope

where the sun finds it

despite the hard frosts

The crows

fly agape

each with a jammed-in apple

corking its caw

top-heavy with hunger

We have pawned the jewelry

the guitar and

my best coat

I have opened my hand

to what we have

to get us through:

a few dark seeds

a fleck of red

a little pulp

Nancy: Of course I believe words are magic, especially well chosen words.

The Old Woman Refuses

She won’t hear wind,

she hears the marsh grass singing

   songs, she hears sparrows

   sweet, sweet, sweet

She won’t say ice,

no, she says ephemeral,

ripples, mummichogs

She erases words,

leaves willow green, sap,

fiddlehead

If you ask her, “where are the birds?”

she will tell you they flew out

early and far, and are bringing

the sun from the sea

There!  she says, there,

that light on the ledge?

The Sun!

What Is The Sound? \ If The Light Wrote A Poem

Alan: So much comes to us when we are still and simply listen.

What Is The Sound?

       for Nancy

What is the sound

of one poem sitting?

sitting quietly by itself

in a notebook?

in a computer?

in a folder?

in a safe?

in a mind?

What is the sound

of one poem? many poems?

a lifetime of poems?

a lifetime of sitting

quietly, sitting,

looking inward and

outward, asking,

seeing, asking,

and emerging,

poem by poem,

question by question,

answer by answer,

or no answer –

What is the sound

of one lifetime? many lifetimes?

a safe full of lifetimes

answered and unanswered,

held and unheld,

released and un-

released?

What is the sound

of one poem, one lifetime,

released and rising,

floating away

into Time itself?

vanishing

into the sound

of Time itself?

Nancy: Say it – make it happen.

If The Light Wrote A Poem

It might write rough branches

smooth buds, glossy bark

it might write ochre

charcoal, lavender, ice

or it might write an old woman

sitting on a stone

    looking beyond the horizon

    looking ahead of the light

and it might scratch out December

and write cerulean instead, celadon

green on the rough branches

blue stars

sky blue stars in the grass

Back \ Shifting The Year Uphill

Alan: Thich Nhat Hanh teaches, “Every moment, wonderful moment.”  Easier to accept at some times than others, but well worth the practice.

Back

Until my back gives, I am immortal.

On my knees, I inspect my future home.

Rising, I am suddenly old.

Hobbling inside to lie down, I become a foundling.

So I recall that each moment holds birth and death,

and that both are framed in suffering.

You bring me tea, and I, grateful simply for kindness,

forget all wisdom, or why it was ever needed.

Nancy: If a poet can’t move the earth on its axis – who can?

Shifting The Year Uphill

so spare

the bay skimmed with ice

the apple tree empty

one small hawk haunting

the still air

and all the grey weight of

   the world notwithstanding

I brace my arms

my back, my long bones

on a shaft of light

and push