again already!

I realize this is not usual for me but time moves fast these says in the 87th year. I realize also that the material about publications, activities needs editing. Will do, perhaps even soon. To alert you, my next book, Excuse For Bring Here (my life with Thoreau) is proceeding and should materialize this fall. In the mean time, another poem.

       The Cooper's Art

A well-made barrel — she was

well made — every curved tapered

stave fitting seeming seamless. 

Promised — No — remembered 

liquor mellow as her belly 

swelled.  But now. drinking's done.

Sun, age, time, build strains 

the cooper's art still restrains. 

One hoop at either end

kept the spirit young until I

took one tight rusted ring away.

Staves tumbled every which way. 

The head fell in on a criss-cross 

pile of odd shaped sticks. For

the loss of that one hoop, shape

design, meaning, all undone. 

VISITING MYSELF, ar last!

Well, I can be brief, then get back to work.

NEWS: My wife departed, Virginia (vicki) Chute's second novel should be available in August. Look for The Daughter of Francis Martin.

And as for Me:  I burrowing through stacks of old poems, doing many revision sufficent to make them new. Here are a couple bits that I had forgotten

A haiku in a strict quote from Thoreau.          
                "Dandelions
          how surprising their
          bright yellow discs. Why study
          other hieroglyphics?"       [The journal: 5/24/1853]



And from Wittgenstein:         

           "That singular sun
              setting behind the hill does
              not hypothesize."

Saying Goodby

The poem below was written more than two years ago. The copy of The Aurorean in which it was published arrive in my mail Thursday, May 2nd. Vicki drew her last breath about 9 AM Monday, April 29th as I sat by her bed,  holding her hand.

In Lieu of Flowers

I didn't read Sunday obituaries

beyond a glance for names,

avoiding the ages of demise

but the eyes stray. 

The phrase "In lieu of flowers" 

being frequent, pleases: 

positivity facing the 

ultimate negativity.

Suddenly the question intrudes: 

what would I say at 

the loss of my partner 

of sixty-six years?

In lieu of flowers — let them grow.

If you find a bug 

carry it carefully outside 

and let it go — 

as she often did:

that's what I'd say.

MARCHING INTO APRIL

Hydrogeological Cycle: Easter, 2013

Luck of a north wind brings

rain from formless clouds higher

than our common air, un-prophaned

by breath of machine or man,

or so it seems, unless you

analyze rain drops for unseen 

nitrites, sulfates etc and so on  

as my curiosity has done. Is 

it force of falling that forms

them or their mutual fear calling

them inward to communal spheres?

Until, through no fault of their

own, they strike stick slide down

the window panes. Misshapen

tear drops until they slip drip

run in trickles, becoming water

here on earth again to later rise

in their certain resurrection,

achieve by chance and being what

they are what faith dreams of.

Visiting For Possible Revision

Leafing through stacks of old poems, most not published, I find some so well forgotten and, now not understood, I wonder...

Just A Cigar

Hairy Haw-Mouth swallowed Freud's cigar hoping

there would be fire where there'd been only smoke

at least something more than pink bubble gum

but waking found the dream unraveling to bare

a breast then another leaving tangled wool from

too many sheep to count and rose quickly to

write the dream's meaning on his slate the screech

of cheap school room chalk stopped him so he wound

the tangled yarn into two neat pink balls

tied them together and went back to bed

AN ALOMST NEW YEAR

(almsot on time this time)

JANUARY THAW

The pond, earth's eye, does not open

in this early January thaw, the pond's eye

that closed more than a month ago. Which,

for months before, appraised the sky

effortlessly, reflectively, in calm or storm, 

by night or day. It may stir now, as an 

uneasy sleeper, but we can't see and what

we hear may be it's bowels rumbling —

do not even know: Does it deeply sleep 

or only (how much greater could an only

be) meditate so profoundly it shames 

distracted human kinds in their most

intent imitation.  I know silver salmon 

sleekly swim silently, invisibly below

as my thoughts swim unseen by you.

Are they the neurons in the pond's Oh

so liquid mind? Or thoughts, memories 

the pond may not remember when it wakes

in April?  Are those rumbles peans, for 

the pond's own reasons, this new-moon night, 

as the pond is stirred from meditation

by winter's warmth, warmth the silent 

salmon of my mind anticipate as well  ?

Jan. 13, '13

The Sun Slept Late

Unreasonably

unseasonably

the feathery

coverlet of fog

the sky descending

to the ground

seems to warm me

although the sheets

of snow and ice

in Nature's bed

remind me

it's winter still

but the fog's confusing

invisibility

does warm me

even as ice-fishermen

suddenly return

with ghostly reality

From the Thoreau Project

Apology To Henry

Your were, you claim, born in the very

 nick of time. Time being what it is,

my distant friend, your proposition will

be difficult to defend. What clues did

Past give you that marked Time's passing ribbon,

so you'd know this was your day, July, twelfth,

eighteen seventeen? What had you heard beyond

your mother's heart beat, family voices, organ

music muffled by her flesh? What had you felt

beside your mother's warmth, the womb, your first home,

that had convinced you Concord would be

the most estimable place in all the world?

In retrospect you could renounce past events

through which you would not have to suffer but

those I fear don't count, nor events to be

for you'd not claim to foresee nor control

the Future. But I'll accept what you said

this same day. Friends! Society! I have

an abundance of that I rejoice in 

and men too that I never speak to, and since

what most call bareness and poverty 

you would say is to me simplicity

you'd ignore what you could and with the rest 

"make do", so any nick would do. But for place,

if city bound, I think you would have moved soon.

And I add to this a few lines young friend, Edward Emerson, gave us at the end of his book of remembrances: lines from "your early prayer".

Great God I ask no meaner pelf

Than that I may not disappoint myself;

That in my action I may soar as high

As I can now discern with this clear eye,

And next in value which thy kindness lends

That I may — greatly — disappoint my friends

Howe're they think or hope that it may be

They may not dream how thou'st distinguished me.