My Light

 

Here comes light:

through the hole in the floor

and the crack in the door

ajar at night.

 

Here comes light:

through the slit in the board

and the knot in the cord

tensioned too tight.

 

Here comes light:

in the gaps among clouds

and spaces in crowds

cowering in fright.

 

Here comes light:

from the dark of the moon

eclipse at high noon.

This is my light.

Nested Boxes

That old indifferent pervert with his ice

Something in Us

                                    Something in us neither knows nor learns

sting of sleet or numbness of the cold

Ring a Ring o’ Rosies

(for twenty Newtown children, gunned)

no starry light dilutes the night

On Passages Through the Woods

                                   There were passages through the woods

The Last Match

Ignore it, then, or blow it out—

Hope Chest

The father joined some slabs of clear white pine

The Art of Motorcycle Accidents

I once believed that it’s a shame to fall

rounding the curves at top speed in the dust,

Joyce Mary Horner

(1903 – 1980)

Professor of English

 Mount Holyoke College

She twitted Chaucer like a little bird

Call Waiting

Before she connects

Catch and Release

I will let you go my fish,

Solstice

The longest night each year we lose the light.

Boys in Blizzards

What obliges them

to take saplings in strangleholds

Mother in the Ocean

The black Atlantic reaches 

out to sky and back up overhead.

What a Student Does

When you don’t see she steals

your little worm

What Teachers Know and Do

(for Andrea, 2002)

can’t be rightly defined

Three Lessons

for JFP

as She Leaves Vermont

for Vassar College

I.                    The Lesson of Frankie Wagtail

That stunted billy goat