ACCOUNT OF MY DAYS

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  keyword(s) in poems:

Sequence: 12

untitled
it's as the world is...


SONG
in the beak of one bird...


I STAND
before the tree...


PLUS A DAY
the eastern light...


ME STANDING STILL
by my feet infant trees...


10/8/03
trunk in the forest lit...


APPLE AND NEARFULL MOON
first bite of an apple...


SUNSET AUTUMN
the brilliant west...


UNEXPECTED LOVE
the cranes hovering...


STILL POOL
inked by falling leaves...


10/23/03
moody cemetery...


ACROSS IN
air...


IN MY NEW BLACK JACKET
beanfields shake their rattles...


OUR TRIP
it is like...


ALAN AFTER HE LEFT
missed out on certain sundays...


5:55
moon gone...


SOMETIME IN THE SEASON
a shower blowing headlines past...


THE HILL WAS BRIGHT GREEN
the crow was darker...


FOLLOWING
the road coming out of my mouth...


NEW SORROWS EVERY DAY
the birds flying through my head...


REAL REMEMBRANCE
the wind as the weather changes...


MY POEMS
I said and then paused...


12/1/03
branches bare their birds to the wind...


LONG FULL
the evening land...


AROUND
the way the world looked to him...


ON THE WORLD
this world is one...


FROM THIS BLUFF
trees having shed their leaves...


WOODS: ZONE
where loneliness finds itself...


THEFT OF A LINE FROM WRIGHT
when the sea comes back...


WILDNESS COMES BACK
The wild in America is contained, pushed back, owned by the people...


3/1/04
the road is quiet...


AUTOBIOGRAPHY VOL. III
in the desert of eternity...


FOR ONCE
setting a course...


YELLOW BIRCH RAVINE, HEMLOCK CLIFFS
go an hour south...


PRESERVED
how a house becomes a ruin...


INSTANT PRACTICE
I have failed...


TEACHER
breath of breaths...


UNTIL
this dream we are living...


OF THE NINETEEN THOUSAND
of the nineteen thousand days of my life so far...


UNDISTURBED
The night after the poetry reading I slept well but towards morning...


SHORT SPRING SHOPPING LIST
forsythia...


WAZOO,
out the:...


7/20/04
the dead wood's fruit...


ELEGY
told me two weeks before he died...


MY CAREER I
near the cascades leaping recklessly...


MY CAREER II
standing on the vast roof that evening...


UNAFFLICTED
summer somnia...


WHAT I NOTICED AND WHAT I THOUGHT
trees shook by wind...


PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE
so happy with me...


WHILE THE MASS EXTINCTIONS
went on there were...


LEFT
to have waited...


LESSON
the heart tilted over...


MODERN SINKHOLES
near the house...


EVERYWHERE
this time of year...


WEEKEND SCENE
walking in circles forwards...


LAST DAY OF SUMMER
a tree lighter by a leaf...


DRY
the natives mow their lawns...


FIRST LIGHT
the other great example...


THE BOLD AND THE PALE
the morning glories have surged up the trellises...


I'M HAPPY
when I say I'm happy...

Listen!


VISITING T.C. STEELE'S HOUSE IN THE RAIN


I.

the trees have had time
to approach the painter's house
and grow large
they have taken away his view
but so has death
and death was never cut down
in his time or ours

his wife's gardens have been copied
by the employees of the state
and under this dull sky
they make earth brighter than heaven

on a rock in one of them
I saw a garter snake looking at me
and wishing I would go
so the frogs would come out


II.

the studio sits just off the peak of the hill
looking like a barn under its hip roof

they let the varnish on the paintings dull
but keep the dust off his brushes

gift shop in the back his work on the walls
examples of the two hands he worked with

a smooth hand for flattering sitters
a rough hand for pleasing himself

one hand plus the other equalled happiness
one made a living (guess which)

one showed the long vistas he lived among
and nearer by the scrubbiness and brilliance

living out in the country brings home to you
his chickens posed for him under the trees

morning light slant on the pecked-bare dirt
also the oak still there a hundred years later

the old woman my guide asks how I make my living
by listening to troubles I say

thinking of my own just now thank god not great
leaving I drop five dollars in the donation box

and put up the hood on my raincoat so
I am equal to the rain ready to go for a walk


III.

from the cabin below the house
I follow the trail of silences
whose name is true
the streams it crosses
make a little noise
but between one and the other
a different silence each time

up the hill again panting
stopping for breath I see
a doe grazing on the grass
covering the family graves
she runs from smelling me