Names of the Trees

Steel speaks no forgiveness but for rust

that holds its breath

till the sun explodes red

in some final setting.

But now these fat sticks with feet

in mud and arms across the air,

sway and whisper

like children's choirs

deliberately breathing, jazzing

out fingers to shade the fire

for cool moss underneath.

And when each falls to feed the rest,

anonymous but for stump

or charcoal in its ash

how shall we call it?

And where shall the record be kept?

Listen: trees pronounce

the air, the water, and the spaces

among our feet,

more human than human

persisting:  Let us call them us,

inhaling outgases,

awaiting fullness of some gospel

no one decodes.

Let us call them us.

May There Be No Sadness Here

        (remembering Lois Alger)

May there be no sadness here.

An empty cup, an empty space,

Digging Potatoes

The digging fork can’t find them but for weeds

advertising the stirred-up planting mound

Sonnet for Spring Trees

Knuckled knees dun

and gray wade moss

Pileated Woodpecker

Upper parts of forest trees,

nude where pines at pasture used to be,

keep their old diseases close

Wicked Little Moth-ings in Small Towns

Wicked little moth-ings in small towns

fly out from the chinking

Mrs. Carriveau

Mrs. Carriveau was soon detained

a year in the county place women are sent.

On Seed Catalogs

Arugula to zucchini,

achillea to zinnia,

Keeping House

                                 I.

Our dream awakes as tangled, knotted string

on pounded stakes of branches broke and stacked

like game sticks where the ground slopes off .

Mr. David Austin's Hardy Rose

thought no good in cold

and bought for more than cost

Slicing Tomato at Winter Solstice

Half is good:

the stem-end ringed

by mold like snow,

Snow Piece

bars up, down, the sky 

these solstice days:

The Last Match

Ignore it, then, or blow it out—

Moving Back South

The first winter you lived north

Watching Birds

                        Juncos stir dry leaves,

Garden Verses

Spotted butterflies, aster to aster,

Man and Horse

Gee

haw

whoa

giddap

Nancy

In the night of ice

he steals her soul

Cohoskwasis (Pine Tree Girl)

In my hand a pebble

Ice

Water from warm ocean