Morning Commute

I can hear The Downeaster pushing the air ahead of it

before it rumbles past the back of the house, again,

like it does every morning.

In the late days of winter, the sun is just cresting

as we hear the train making its way back to Boston again,

the light glinting off the silver roofs

 just visible from my kitchen table.

At this hour it's businesspeople reading the paper

or their morning emails,

drinking coffee. 

They're eyes rest on the glass of the windows

but mostly they see their calendars and day's meetings

even as the New Hampshire woods slide past.

Some part of their brain is  vaguely aware of a little house with grey siding

they just passed,

sun reflecting off the windows. 

They don't see the man, also drinking coffee,

looking back at them.

They are passing through Newburyport

when I put my mug in the dishwasher 

and wander up to my office

where my own calendar and email awaits.

YouTube: https://youtu.be/FemO2vL8tVU

George

A giraffe is not a horse

of course.
But what if you could ride one and train it to pick apples?
You could saddle up George - you would name your sweet ride George -
and meander into an orchard completely unnoticed
and George would sidle up to an unsuspecting apple tree
and pull one off for you, turning his great neck 
and making a loop of it
to drop it in your hand, and then 
he would pluck another for himself
and you would wander amongst the trees
and the children and their grandmothers
nibbling your apples
and no one would really notice you, or George.
He would be a subtle giraffe,
standing still at times, 
so still no one would see the two of you,
unless you happened to sneeze.

Audio: https://anchor.fm/honest-chaos/episodes/George-ervjj1

YouTube: 

on this sort of day

 

On a day when there the snow falls without a whisper

fat flakes catching light and slowly piling white,

on a day when the furnace burns steadily

a soothing roar of air and heat,

on this sort of day when I kick my legs over the side of the bed

and the first steps ache in my knees, my back,

but by the time I have my t-shirt on

and,

one step at a time, make it down the stairs to the kitchen

with only a little creaking of ligaments in my feet 

to match the creaking in the old wood,

and,

with a cup of steaming coffee I can sit at the table

by the window.

It is on these sorts of days

that is surprises me how little

I wish for youth again. 

YouTube: https://youtu.be/FbaspS2aqT8

Audio: https://anchor.fm/honest-chaos/episodes/On-This-Sort-of-Day-erm8th

moving day

You walk through the empty house and

there is only dust in the corners and impressions in the rugs

where the furniture had rested a few hours before.

Where you sat at a desk against the window

and sometimes stuck, looked up to see a rafter of turkeys

wander out of the woods,

the rug shows where the legs had stood,

and there is an outline where the rollers of your chair 

roamed back and forth as you stood and sat.

In the bedroom there are the rectangular outlines of your dresser;

in the living room more divets for the couch and coffee table.

All the places you sat or slept, dressed or read,

laughed with friends, drank coffee or sipped wine

have been reduced to fibric memories that will disappear

when the crew you've hired to clean the carpets comes tomorrow.

 

YouTube: https://youtu.be/hwzN_84tCL4

Audio: https://anchor.fm/honest-chaos/episodes/Moving-Day-erm8pl

A Man's Song

I paused to stand upon the ice in the beaver's meadow
where he had dammed a brook and made a pond
and now cloud-white ice rimmed the sky-blue body
in the last days of February.
Listening to the brook babble on the other side of the dam
where motion held back stasis,
I suddenly heard a man's song on the wind.

These were not the bass notes of creation
rumbling deep below the surface of everything,
nor the tenor that lifted up the heavens,
but a baritone of life - a mix of honey and tears -
a rising note of the cycle of birth to death.

When I turned to listen
there was one more note in the air -
a fatherly intonement of responsibility -
weighted and worthy -
then it was gone
and there was only the silent frozen pond to one side of me
and to the other,
the brook talking on its journey away.

YouTube: https://youtu.be/0RPQQJ7NS3c

Audio: https://anchor.fm/honest-chaos/episodes/A-Mans-Song-erm8kb

slack tide

Dawn unfurled under clouds glowing like embers

as I began my paddle up river, riding the tide's return.

I can't tell you of the sea, rolling infinitely

I can only tell you about what I know:

the rock and sand beach on either side,

the white pines scratching at the sky.

Propelled by one blade at a time
cutting into the water
salt and fresh combined
sometimes splashing up onto my hands
and dripping off my brow.

A heron watches with his crane neck
standing knee deep in the shallows
then with a honk of objection takes flight
on a river I cannot follow on.

I bend to my task, lean forward
reaching farther with each stroke
as I feel the push of the tide slackening.
Now it is my muscle and determination alone
that brings me deeper inland.

The poplar and oak mix with the pines
creeping closer to the narrowing channel.
They tower and crowd the sun,
which is now high over head.

This is slack tide:
the in-between moment of neither coming nor going.
I pause and let the boat come to a stop,
my paddle across my lap.
A barred owl has been watching me
from the shadows.
We are statues, he in the woods, I on the water.
Then I raise the paddle in salute.

I feel I am almost there
and I begin churning like a seated windmill.
The trees are marching past me
and the marshy grasses slide along
keeping time.

I roll and drag at the water, breathless
until I feel the pull of tide telling me time is up.
I pause for a moment, then keep pulling,
fighting to see what is behind one more bend.
Too soon, I chant. Too soon.

My paddle scoops sand from the bottom
and I see dark mud along the shore
where the water has receded.

I pause again, I see the heron at the next bend ahead
he cocks his eye at me.
I am drifting backwards now
but I meet his gaze and hold it for a time.
Soon it will be too shallow to paddle here
and if I linger, I will be stranded.

I turn my boat back
into the embrace of the river,
retracing my journey,
but now I try to engage with each rock
appreciate each leaf.

As the river widens I realize
I did not see the owl again.
I look over my shoulder
before I meet the sea -

The wire legged heron
is there watching me pass beyond.

Cooking for my Daughter

Like her ancestral Bastet*,

the cat’s head barely moves
as he takes in the scene of me
mixing yeast and water, flour and salt.

This dough is for pizza,
a family staple that goes back
before my daughter’s birth,
a time I remember as if it were only a story
and of course, she does not remember at all.

She’s coming for lunch in a few hours.
This evolution in our lives
is like the day after the discovery of the wheel,
or the first summer after the domestication of wheat:
everything is different, but we’re not quite sure
what it all means just yet.

Later I punch down the risen dough
and roll it out.
I paint the surface with olive oil
then spread tomato sauce and cheese –
New World innovations
covering over Old.

* Bastet or Bast (Ancient Egyptian: bꜣstjt "She of the Ointment Jar", Coptic: Ⲟⲩⲃⲁⲥⲧⲉ[2] /ubaste/) was a goddess of ancient Egyptian religion, worshiped as early as the Second Dynasty (2890 BCE). Her name also is rendered as B'sst, Baast, Ubaste, and Baset.[3] In ancient Greek religion, she was known as Ailuros (Koinē Greek: αἴλουρος "cat").
Bastet was worshipped in Bubastis in Lower Egypt, originally as a lioness goddess, a role shared by other deities such as Sekhmet. Eventually Bastet and Sekhmet were characterized as two aspects of the same goddess, with Sekhmet representing the powerful warrior and protector aspect and Bastet, who increasingly was depicted as a cat, representing a gentler aspect.