the residents

Blackened circles spot the pads

where oil memories sank into the concrete -

you roll over them as you pull up to the pump -

you see the cashier behind the plexiglass

scanning bottles of soda and packs of cigarettes

and scratch tickets -

the regulars he knows -

the ones not known to others -

it is a community of the night -

the nurses on swing shift

the musicians coming home from a gig -

the bar tenders, beer sopped

and the junkie homeless who know

they won't get run off from the bathrooms

when it's three AM and the respectable people are asleep.

The clubbers, too, who think they are doing something new

and can only imagine being this way

young and beautiful.

Even so, he scans their ice cream

because who has never had ice cream

when the moon is tired and the sun has hit the snooze button

one more time.

Isn't that ah-mazing?!

But the other residents know them for what they are -

tourists passing through.

The cashier is an unwilling priest -

a keeper of the fluorescent flame -

warding off the darkness.

Which are you? Resident or tourist?

It doesn't matter as you leave your car by the pump

and walk through the door with the markers for height -

the priest will see you now,

and provide you sustenance for the darkest hours.

unleashed

 

The white chops of my dog's legs flash 

as she trots ahead of me -

she revels in her freedom

despite the signs instructing those of us who walk the trails

to keep our dogs leashed.

She darts to one patch of leaves

then to a stand of grass

all beneath the shade of oaks 

and maples

and hemlocks -

her snout to the ground

and snuff-snuff

before she is off again

experiencing a layer of reality I am cut off from -

a fourth dimension I have no senses to perceive.

But, 

her joy becomes my joy as I watch 

and I am unleashed

and find I can smell the disturbed mulch

and I can hear the rustle of the wind

and I feel the hand of the sun on my cheek

as I pass between the solidity of the trunks.

when it was not

I am drinking coffee looking out the window 

at the oaks and maples
as I have done thousands of times. 

This is morning in my house. 

But I was not the first to drink coffee here -

there was a different table and different chairs

when I walked through with my agent

and the Parkers were still making their home here.

I could look at records at Town Hall to see 

who was their before them, 

the chain of property rights extending back

to when this spot was only oaks and poplars

and no table to sit at, or window to look through. 

But there are no records of the future for me to look up 

to whom I sold it to

in some year 

hopefully long from now -

or perhaps my children are listed as the sellers. 

The buyers names are not yet written in history.

Perhaps they are getting dropped off at elementary school this morning,

she is wearing a yellow jacket, the color of fall maple leaves;

he has collected acorns to show his teacher. 

They do not even know each other yet.

They are coming down Time's road to this house,

and they will sit here with their morning coffee someday,

looking out this window

at the spindly oak I am looking at now -

the one that has just stuck its head up past the rhododendrons -

which by then will have grown into its oakish majesty. 

They will know it was not always so,

but they will not remember when it was not. 

Man-Talk

"love you" he said

over wires stretched under the Atlantic

[on 10 cent Sunday to Germany

and most of Western Europe]

 

the slip --

he was somewhere absently offering farewell to

his wife/dad/son --

 

nonetheless stuffed the pause

with awkwardness.

 

"I know" I sent - smirk almost visible

to relieve the moment.

then quick --

"I'll have Kan call Tammy next week"

"yeah - later"

 

still savoring my best-friend's embarrassment

(wondering if he would tell his wife)

(I just told Mark I loved him)

(what, is he dying?)

I was warmed

that I had fit, even if by accident

into that inmost list --

the feeling reciprocated

if never said

and covered by mirth.

**

I don't remember when I wrote this poem exactly - probably 2004 or so. It was based on a real moment. 

how it begins, again

I was not expecting to see you here

my old friend.
I thought perhaps the dog from my childhood,
and my parents, of course,
but you have been gone so long - 
it's not that I stopped thinking of you -
but you had faded some with time and distance -
which are really the same thing.

You are wearing your red shirt - 
it's the one I remember you in 
when I thought of you
after.

I see - this is why you wear it - 
and that's a kindness. 

We are walking in the woods 
here, after the end of the world - 
hands in our pockets -  
as we once did. 
It's fall
and the oaks are turning red 
like your shirt. 

It's good you are here - 
and this 
is how it begins again.

Us who are lucky

How many miles I would have walked
had I known
this was coming -

how many paths with grass
dripping morning dew
on my socks with each step,
the sun just over the tree line - 

or a rock strewn trail winding up
through cramped pines 
to catch a glimpse, at the summit
of other peaks gathered 'round like neighbors -

how, you ask, did I not know
age was coming -
it comes for all of us
who are lucky.

I am only a fool

 

The days I feel I am a fool, it is as if

I am dressed in a billowy canary jumper

dotted with a rouge of polka dots

and a foam ball on my nose.

With floppy ketchup shoes and French fry laces

I waddle about

trying to say serious things that come out like

"Life is short, call your mother!"

"You are what you do, not what you say you'll do!"

and the eyes settle on me

unwavering

for a moment

and then they laugh.

I am earnest in all things

on these days

but when the big daisy on my lapel

squirts them in the eye,

I'm just not taken seriously -

but this is me.

Just me.