Poems

Shakespeare’s Ashland words
Erupt into the night sky
Star bright audience

Can you tell
Which is the face
Can you tell
Which is the mask
Reflected in
Mirrored seas
Ever turning
Ever turning
With sunlight’s
Diurnal distance
Star light’s
Nocturnal grace

Last night in sturdy promises I vowed
I would at last perform those vital tasks
From which procrastination steered me clear
Each prior day. The list is very long;
Indeed it’s like a scroll that never ends,
So many things to add, so few removed.
Not every item bears an equal weight,
Though some, like empires, rise and fall again.
Far off in future’s secret landscape lies
A field where I am resting, by a tree.
I’ve finished all my tasks—or let them go—
Relaxing is the order of the day.
No doubt that field and tree are to be found
On land that’s reached through six dark feet of ground.

As with a child, the process takes time
first to go are the sunflowers
dry stalks chopped for compost

Each plant in its turn
labor-weary, satisfied
folded in and under

back to the core
back to the start
“we stand on the shoulders of giants”

The secrets of the heart
Wrapped in lovers’
Reluctant truths shared
One to another in busy days
Time drives digital hours
To days weeks and months
Of rhetorical flourishes as if
Words could mollify devotion
One to another in busy days