8.
oh Equinox baby
you are the earth made
all new: all hope
9.
the best spring flowers
root everywhere and thrive:
hot house buds die
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Poet. Essayist. Fictioner. Steamboat fireman. Bit of a grackle.
Born the year of the water ox
a fish out of water
in every tributary and ocean
still I swim
filled to the gill
with all I need
Been trying to find a way to sum up, though I hate to engage in that kind of math. The injury I allow myself comes from allowing myself to get too attached to the job. I knew, down deep, it wouldn’t last. There wasn’t enough to sustain it, and the thing toppled like all castles built on sand or so goes the old parable, and I have discovered, much to my surprise, that I still have a sense of dignity. I end up making my way through the world in the exact same way. And so I do.
And so I will.
Today, you would have been 95
which seemed so old to me at 17 —
there are days when you’re close
growing out of my bones, an echo
of your voice in my throat, my inner ear
but only that — the remainder
of a silence after the last syllable sounds
a memory of laughter and of a father’s rebukes
that taught me: love too can be harsh
but never without heart or intention. The fuselage
of a life that dropped out of the sky
and I plant gardens around the wreckage,
drag this sadness out into the sun, to laugh and to cry
when your absence burns the air in my lungs.
