Verandah pauses at a neighbor’s pond after a vigorous hike up Belden Hill.
1. SCRAM RAM AMBLE
Better to be giddy, take a stab
at the summit, than boot up
with flabby beauty
on the home hard drive…
We scale Belden again
with side-wind wind on slime-ice;
intermittent grit, our only grace.
Squint into this
back-of-the-hand-scape—
The world hurts
as we watch
winter scare up
our sentence.
Monadnock, Graylock, Pisgah,
forest, hayfield, orchard:
forked, ancestral, squat.
How particularly Mayan
our mountains look this morning,
my companion sighs.
Out of the blue,
the borrowed dog says,
Sit for your treat!
and we chew.
Verandah on the handmade bench at the top of Belden Hill, inscribing the guest book.
2. DOWN TO THE MIRE
April 18, 2007
Time in the slog zone
scanning the war
with tears…
Skin is kind.
A furrow suits your face
If age folds it.
Rut fits tread.
Decode the trace:
Your name is mud.
Blood from a stone…
Dusk hits the spot.
Chaos.
Soft dates and
the palms that weighed them
roll in the marketplace.
The lovely blond…
Democracy
was her fiancé.
Cinders letter the road.
You bend to read
What wind spews.
Spring rings true
as red hands
in the Green Zone.
_________________
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