Black and White Photograph

14 April 2009

to look upon you, young again,
is to feel a spring rising in
my heart that will ever
flow

those founts, flowing pure, over
the stones, speak again, in
whispering tones, day and night,

those pearls of words, worlds,
clattering to the floor, I
gathered up, lining my pockets

with their smoothness, fingering
the beads and whispering back
yes, I am here,

and here I will stay, and
speak, for awhile yet, listening, always
to the founts pure flow

Mo Bhron (My Grief)

oh love (the rain is falling)
will you look on me when
I lie long upon your grave

eyes blinded by salt water,
tracing the letters of your name,
over and again until the

letters rhyme with the beat of
my heart echoing back, a
sad refrain, oh love, my

lost one, my soul will fly
across the sea to meet yours,
to comingle in the mist

at once together and apart,
watching waves crash upon the rocks
while seabirds wheel and cry

Hyacinths Crowning

the hyacinths are crowning
through the blackloam soil,
just past Eastertide and
the trees blooming into pink clouds

(the crocus, too, and the daffodils and tulip
bulbs bursting through black)

on Birch Street. And still, you
refuse to come to me, the
days double and again
double as the

moon looks down upon her
twin, wreathed, not with
fog, but with the shining
script of what is yet to come

ah, April, you cruellest of months,
making me wait to see your face
swaddled round with
the first linen cloths,

scanning the sky, star-pocked,
for some sign

as the Bronx River flows
swiftly past, overgorged after
the rains, under the arched stone
bridges, past the hospital

carrying the branch broken
from the tree to the ocean-
mother of us all

as I burn, burn daylight
and I wait, and will wait,
to look upon your face