His Level Now Upon the Shelf

*Written for day 8 of the PAD challenge. Prompt "a tool."

his level now upon the shelf
he held surely in his hands, now age-
gnarled, aching, when he was a
younger man, building up a house for
his young bride and the children,
planned for, who came in time to
sit around his table

the center ring of brass still
shines as it did that day, when,
resting it on the stone wall
facing westward, the pearl in
the sphere of glass steady, so,
as the sun dipped beyond the
hills he counted his blessings on
his fingers, those other tools,

too, that helped make his house
a home, the boards smoothed and joined
for a cradle, a chest for a
daughter, a roof to keep the weather out,
all these things he counts, and recounts, his
level now upon the shelf

Until the Last Ember of the Sun

*Written for day 7 of the PAD challenge, prompt "Until (blank)."

until the last ember of the sun
falls through the firmament, a
small beacon in all that black,

she will wait, in her shift, counting
the leaves as they grow, finely-veined,
semi-transparent, on the tree

that brushes her windowpane with an
errant branch, a tapping finger, as
if to say, yes, you are still here

in spite of all the contradictions,
served up cold, on a plate, like
last night's dinner

smiling, all the while, at the
passing scene (how can she not?)
untangling the knots the wind wove

in her hair, counting the ants as
they make their hoardings for
winter, her heart's larder already full

of apples, sweets, preserves, all there
for the tasting

On The Road Home

*Written for day 6 of the PAD challenge...on de Goya's "Flight of the Witches."

how soon before they would shift
back to their familiar shapes, the

carrion crow, the cat, the snake
writhing around the stump of a

tree he had hoped to safely sleep
beside until the dawn broken

like the shell of an egg held
in her hand, cracked

against the rim of a teacup, the
kettle singing atop the fire

now this whirlwind of flesh about
his head, and he only wanting

to be home in his own bed,
unmolested by spirits, his wife

whispering, telling her beads,
ten by ten, ivorywhite, her hands

in his, later, murmuring a
morning prayer, her lips pressed to his

North Reading Room

*Written for the PAD (poem-a-day) 2010 challenge for National Poetry Month. The prompt is: too much information.

wooden card catalogues, the sliding
drawers have their grooves smoothed
with beeswax, those busy insects simmering

like the synapses of her brain as she
catches his eye across the reading room
dotted by heads bent over books, inclined

towards the green-shaded lamps to catch
the light in this otherwise dim gallery
of recessed shelves and carpet-quieted boards

fingers trembling at "a" she thinks yes, able,
he is and I for him, and happy so, to
catalogue each sigh and slight

she feels, listing her pale attributes
on one side of the scale, her
human measurements--five-seven, brown-

haired, blueish-eyed, 45-34-44, an
eight-and-a-half shoe (to walk
alongside you), ears still unpierced

at forty-two, no tattoos, scratching out
genealogies and grocery lists, wishing for
what was, when she was hungry

and Gawain still not yet killed her dragon--
other bones linger long, around the
encampment, whitened, with an inventory

written upon them, the magical, the
lost and longed for, the pecks of corn and barley and
half-stone weight of sugar candy stored away

History, Unraveling

that history, unraveling from
the edges of the tapestry
unweaving, each day, a little
more, the scenes of unicorns

recumbent, fading from view as
he turns to her with quizzical
looks and the riddle of his
fingers spanning round her waist, the

Cloisters in dark November, tracing
the face of the woman, stone-
hewn

riddle me, riddle me, randy-ro,
my father gave me seed to sow

they bloom now, in Spring, so many
seasons later,
sleeping, have they been sleeping

these many years, a long
hibernation of sorts, bursting forth
only now, their histories
writ upon their petals,
florid and pale by turns

A Lecture on Tintoretto

throwing off the old cloak of
melancholy, shaking away the

raindrops dripping from the tip
of an umbrella puddling down to our feet

as the lecture on Tintoretto starts,
the room darkens, and the slides

drop in their carousel, the click-
click-click ticking away the next

fifty minutes or so

later
watching, as starving cattle, seven
in number, totter away, seven glossy-fat
take their place, grazing in the long grass

putting on new clothes,
radiant in your reflection,
sighing, always, at the colors mixed
perfectly, so, the iris a palette
of blue, gold, brown

Partly Because She Loves Him

partly because she loves him
she holds her tongue
as she watches two geese
honking northwards, past Fleetwood Station

and wishes he would clasp her hand again
in his, warming it, this chill
Spring evening as
another train glides south

the rectangles of light punctuated
by the visages of travellers trying
to reach their own ends, folding and
unfolding their newspapers, grappling

with glossy magazines, and she,
she nurses an ache, a knot, so
thickcorded to her middle it never
will be born, her phantom child, a second self,

her love, her lost one, cherished
for so long, so well, it is nearly named,
but yet a chimera, glistering in the
dark, then gone

The Coach Painter

(1826, Bridgetown, Barbados)

paint pots of red and gilt, in
Barbados, Bridgetown it was, where
the conflagration rose up--and the

carriage for the Governor only
half-complete, the coat-of-arms
a bare tracing when an errant

spark fell upon those rags, long
forgotten, and, as the birds
cried out their evening song the

smouldering grew to flame, the glass
panes, carefully leaded, carried from England,
blackened and cracked, the lion and the

unicorn rampant no more, but
charred to dust, the billowing smoke seen
beyond the green of canefields, an ill

omen, indeed, in this coastal town,
the sails of tall schooners swaying on the
water, moored to this island

of coral limestone, his cat
run into the cotton at the
first sign of smoke. the sun

rises again and he, too, to survey
the damage, the salvage starts,
building up again, from the earth,
this painter of coaches

Manhattan (Evening)

let me float in my lover's arms,
sure, what harm in it, to fox trot
down lovers lane, no harm indeed,

if honestly meant, that kiss (or two)
in the twilight, beneath electric
lights wired and rewired patiently

(I just knew you would kiss like that,
as the sky was riven in two)

from mid-century on

and the city would be a fine place,
if they would ever finish building it....
the sun rising and setting on the

gatekeepers with their coffee and
meetings and profit and loss statements,
the price of paper and ink, the

printer in Pennsylvania, then Vermont,
then India, now China...

how soon before we are all remaindered?

and still she floats in her lover's
arms, the lucky coin in her shoe
thinsilver, under her heel

Spring Is A-Coming In

tu-whit, tu-whoo
tu-whit, tu-whoo
and Spring is a-coming in
with all her attendant charms
and furbelows, the green at
her wrists and in her hair,
loose-belted round her waist, the
tendrils curling into words, the
growing script across the slate-
blue flagstones

her breath, blowing away winter
hoar-frost, her touch thaws
the ground, drawing up
the purple crocus and the drooping heads
of snowbells littering the lawns
newly greened

.....the wettest March in memory, yes,
soaked to the skin we were,
as we walked from school, the
last blast of Winter biting at
our heels, the trees upturned
in the street....

it was a lover and his...
in the Springtime....

and Spring says, come
and lie with me

and watch the pink cloud tree
explode again, like last year, while
you cradled the book and volume of
his brain in your hands

when hearts burst and
the grounds were well watered

her breath was a
welcome respite, wreathing

itself round, a relief after
the hard cold freezing our pipes,
chapping our fingers, the slogging
through snow,

her breath a kiss upon our brow