ACCOUNT OF MY DAYS

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  keyword(s) in poems:

Sequence: 18

SURVIVAL
Survive the summer, crumbs of dead leaves dropped by the...


THE DREAM OF LAST NIGHT
dreamt of rain...


INHERITANCE
you are heir to a hidden philosophy...


LAST DAYS OF SUMMER
the long dry spell weakens everything...


THE HARVEST
late afternoon...


A MAN
as I left there stood a man...


TIMES/STEPS/FUTURE/TRADE
the times I saw...


untitled
blank page: no wreck yet...


OUR NEIGHBORHOOD THE UNIVERSE
a black hole is empty...


A SQUIRREL MAKES A MEAL OF ACORNS
it looks up and sees...


THE DIVER
the tomb lid sketch a naked man his body arched...


MY FIT
my old clothes carry my old shape...


12/31/10
will I be silenced? yes...


DRIVING BY
a field of crows in winter...


LOSS AND GAIN
the wind that took...


MY INQUIRY
do you piss first thing when you get up...


THREE QUESTIONS
the last cold night passed...


HEMLOCK BLUFFS ONCE AGAIN
along the ridge...


NEWS
somewhere peace has begun...


untitled
we are always...


MY ENVIRONMENT MINUS ME
looks around...


THE WORLD WE ARE NOT IN
the known world...


WORLD NEWS
everything is a containment vessel...


BORROWED THEME
leaf lying there...


3/18/11
moon up...


IN THE HIERARCHY OF POETS
I attempt to find my place...


BEGIN HERE
the light inches forward...


MORE
the old: as they shrink...


WHAT IT IS
something has chosen me for its disguise...


FOLLOW
the one who disguised himself as rain--...


MORNINGS LIKE THIS
inside me...


NIGHT
the spatter on the boards...


TO REASON
I love you because I am not like you...


TO THOSE OF A DISTANT PLANET
there as here...


ERIC RENSBERGER
The date and cause of his death are unknown to the present...


BETWEEN STORMS
the sparrow's hop...


REPORTING ON MYSELF
who tried hardest with me?...


HERE
Here where the alleys cross all the ground has been asphalted...


MY DISASTER PLAN
I will write about it...


WHAT WE HAVE
one sky becomes another...


I RECALL A JUNE DAY IN THE FIFTIES
brief as any...


5/30/11
the wind-felled trees piled in the open...


AFTER EASILY
I take with me ...


EARLY HEAT WAVE
the new moon takes its pincers...


I DON'T LOOK AT PHOTOGRAPHS
so there's no way I'll be inspired...


OF STONE, STONE
to speak of stone...


PURSUIT
the zodiacal beasts bounding...


WE HAVE TO PROCEED CAUTIOUSLY
no one else must ever know what...


INSTANT
lightning that touches earth...


untitled
one stone with one name...


A UNIVERSE
upward is more or less forever...


YELLOW CREEK
each spring the plowing...


LEAVES AND RAIN
the leaves in the wind make a sound like rain...


LISTENING TO A TRAVELER
there you go in the dark...


THE LOSERS
when the bud can no longer strain against...


MY FATHER'S GRADUATION PORTRAIT
your youth faded far more swiftly...


POEM NOT DONE
two thirds...


THE PRESENT MOMENT
overall I'd have to say...


ORCHESTRAL ACCOMPANIMENT
the cicadas' strict song...


HOPE
Never easy in his mind, that man still keeps hoping. It's true:...


AT THE WINDOW LOOKING OUT
a narrow street comes to mind...

Listen!


HERE BEGINS THE POEM OF MY LEFT HAND


My left hand is a child
moving clumsily and eagerly,
shy in company.  He lets his older brother
do the clasping and pointing,
all the most dramatic gestures.
Everything is a joke to him
because he knows he is despised
for being left, but all admit
that what is left is the best part.

My left hand is always excited
yet he claims to know nothing,
is rather silent when I question him.

He is growing so much more slowly
than the rest of me--that is why
he is not yet skilled, bold, and learned.
For every ten years of mine he matures one,
and I think when I die and am buried
my left hand will be alive still,
just coming into the strength of youth.
I love to think of him in the ground,
bold amongst the stones and clay,
his time of adventure come at last,

his music a man's music,
studying the worm's mouth without desolation
now that he has entered a time with no sun:
too deep to freeze, too cool to sweat.
He is never alone, he is in the great
multitude of life that has been waiting for him.
He has grown wiser than me through coming to know
the beat of the world in the center of his body.

From his house of clay he can watch
the stars and the stretch of space
beyond the farthest star.  He has graceful
years before he grows old, and even that
will be a blessing like a silk glove,
for as he softens the stones draw close
and cradle him and call him
their little old boy, so weak and in need
of voices to teach him how to die and become
a new mineral, moistened with forever.