Heaven’s Little Western New York Helper

From that “Don’t You Worry!” book to plasticine Buddhas molded by coughing Chinese lungs this country mart in the nowhere town Fredonia, New York just up the road from my cowgirl sister’s manse   strives to be a little lamp that shines flash-flickering on a narrowing backwoods highway in deep Chautauqua solitude, all-penetrating Lily Dale

If I Knew

So little time, and if I knew I would rush out into streets and  alleys, down to the sunny marsh to watch herons fish.   I would take up with the neighborhood, make acquaintance with the Labrador who barks in the yard and needs a walk and I would offer to walk him.   I

So What? Here’s What!

So what if you don’t appreciate conceptual art? so what if  you find  poetry gibberish, you to-do-list during the classical concert and ballet leaves your body icy cold?   You’re crook-faced, your frame’s askew you find no thrills in professional football you were a B minus student and most of the time you want to

Waiting for the Words

Maybe a poem would fly from my mouth if I could remember the words of a day in the summer when we kissed beside a frog-filled pond with the willow tree bowing and the sun spinning like the wheel of Fatima.   Or if I understood what dogs are saying when they hail me as

An  Invitation

There’s a rain arriving from the mysterious west it will patter against the dog-faced mimosa leaves stream down along the asphalt shingles splash into your pink and upturned mouth.   It’s the very same as the childhood rains that happily soaked you as you ran barefoot down the hissing sidewalks to the muddy schoolyard  

You Always Have an Answer

When I say: I think God visited me in a dream last night. You say: So what was it you ate for dinner?   When I say: I think that God may have a perfect love for you and me. You say: Wishful thinking.   When I say: My grandfather spoke to me from heaven.

Pathways

  The sun is sinking beneath roofs too many to mark or number and in the light of porches in the winking light of bedrooms souls dressed in finest flesh linger and breathe.   This is not the second coming of the Lord this is not the time of fire anew and baptism this is

Pause

When we halt our inner converse the universe is still, like a bold mouse pausing, not to be espied. When our monologue ceases   our earth is quiet like sunlight drifting through afternoon lace like the distant sigh of an old furnace, the murmur of leaves in spring wind.   Cacophonous our mind’s production uproarious

Seven Dragons

Seven dragons cross the sky
their breath is hot against the wind
seven dragons, serpents all
calling out across the universe

Winter Boys

It’s the full life of winter’s blustery height
ice and flurry and sharp-scented cold
could be mistaken for nature’s call to death
but it’s character, soft landscape, chill flame.