How did it get to be so late so early?
Of all that doesn’t happen, this does.
Why?
Tag Archives: poetry
Prayers for my dad
Is he warm?
Is he safe?
Is he happy?
Is he free?
From fear-driven to love-driven prayer
It’s like scooping
oil from water hoping
to save the birds
Scraps of paper plucked from the pocket of my robe
Things I meant to write, remnants of dreams,
notes in my wallet, first lines that actually
made it followed by multiple cross-outs,
new starts on new pages, the opening
now gone as well, all of it collapsing
in thudding rhyme echoing
something I wrote a year ago.
Scratch, delete, rip,
crumple, toss, light
the damn basket on fire!
Walk smiling over this paradise
Appeal to the Ranger Rescue Squad
Is poetry a whipping-up
of something special, a
pulled voice
or a kind of trance?
I’ve never known what
a poem is.
My favorites sound like
nothing so much as
someone saying something
interesting.
But that can’t be
enough for a poem.
The worst are about
poetry itself.
Maybe those’re
not even poems.
Maybe they’re just
a baffled boy
seeking a trail.
I saw a sign on a tree
“Don’t pick the plums.”
Till then I’d not noticed
how juicy they look.
Wanting the in-between
Not the nothing or everything
A most pleasant walk
I wanted to go when it wasn’t
raining, and it wasn’t.
I saw how all is beautiful
if you just let your eye
adjust to it: the anchor on the
houseboat, the well-wishing
at the door, the kid’s book-
bag and yellow raincoat.
I remembered visiting Father
Imbelli’s mother, before
he and I made that retreat:
the narrow wall with books,
her Sinatra record, the window
looking out over the Bronx.
Later, at Maryknoll, we ate
from trays in the institutional
dining hall (I love those, the trays
and the dining halls), and drank
Jack Daniels while looking out
over the Hudson. Isn’t that what
we’re meant to do, take
the God’s-eye view
and love the supper from our tray?
We have our conversations but never speak
How do you
so well know what
I will say and I,
your life before you live it,
you?
Utrecht Journal 