ACCOUNT OF MY DAYS

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1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10
11 12 13 14 15
16 17 18 19 20

  keyword(s) in poems:

Sequence: 7

TRIPLE OUGHT
we have endured...


TURN OR BE TURNED
waking...


untitled
I am...


WEAK
my ill-rising...


FIRST DAY OF SPRING A BLIZZARD VISITS US
this last snow's weight and power...


BOOK OF THE DAY
a version of no corrections...


SNOWFALL
a cancel of...


HERE, YOU
valley of the powerless...


untitled
the minutes...


NOTES IN HIS OWN HAND
About the destroying condition....


NEIGHBORLY
our day...


untitled
out of the door...


JUST BARELY
here it is difficult...


untitled
quoted before I speak...


TRUE
time to notice...


POINT OUT
here is an impossibility...


COMPANY
there is a quiet before I speak...


HEARTENED
almost midnight...


IN PROCESS
giving thanks or sass...


CONTINUANCE
a face to look into for...


STRUGGLE TO UNDERSTAND
fresh tears...


PRAYER
heart made of dirt...


MONDAY
the call to remind me...


JUST LIKE ME
trying to move sideways...


HOW IT IS
the old smile...


THUNDERSTORM LIGHTNING FLASHES
the storm's welcome...


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AT LEAST ONE PERSON
a shell game in which...


FOR THOSE LYING WAKEFUL AS IT STORMS
thunder off in the distance...


4/22/96
press of rain...


CONSCIOUSNESS
what grabs it...


CLEAR DARK
there should be...


untitled
see what...


START OF THE DAY
tight...


ADDRESSING YOU
if you are staring at me...


untitled
the strange diction...


untitled
3 a.m. an owl calls out...


WEATHER REPORT
showers and thundershowers...


NOTATION
I allow myself to be influenced. It is ...


WHEN YOU
arrive in ocean a wave arises inside you...


THEFT OF LINES FROM CERNUDA
Sleep...


10/20/96
my circles run through the woods...


untitled
held up my empty secrets...


THE FEELING OF IT
North begins hereabouts...


TIME TO GO
winter light...


A PLACE
it closes to them...


CLOSING MY EYES
as I die...


STORY ABOUT SAFETY
the wind up...


untitled
a voice in the room...


11/19/96
words rest...


untitled
clouds form...


POEM OF SLEEP
sky mists...


MUSIC
a music that makes me...


WHEN I READ
I read to keep steady...


SOS
the page shifts no rest a sea...


NOW REMEMBERING
the rain cuts...


CARRIED
I give up on my fingers...


HAWK
strong hunter...


OVER AND OUT
crossing over the creek bed...

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