Fingering Piles of Gravel for Fossils

Children are still at the shore

Of the lake too deep for them

To swim, digging for beach glass

And chattering happily

About their small finds instead.

Yesterday, an intrepid

Young man hiked in brutal

Sun over Utah’s salt flats

Until he found a plunge hole

And dug down to get his prize,

A hunk of meteorite

Fresh from the sky, fusion crust

Still smooth and not yet rusted,

A rock in your hand that was

Literally in space ten

Days ago, likely as old

As the whole solar system.

The Webb Telescope now sees,

Among 5,000 planets

Identified to sift through,

One with carbon dioxide,

First with carbon dioxide,

Someone’s quick to emphasize,

Happily. There will be more.

The Lowest Transparency That Language Can Attain

What’s the polar opposite

Of Susanne Langer’s symbols,

The algebraic letters

Pure enough to see clear through

To all the numerical

Relationships they reveal,

The highest ‘transparency’

That language can attain? Poems,

Maybe, these muddiest waves,

Dirtiest ditches, darkest

Glasses, most tarnished mirrors.

We’re not trying to let you

Through, not trying to let you

Use our naked ghosts as gates

Into what you imagine

You’re capable of knowing

Anyway. Tarry pavements,

Wayside gravel will reflect

You the best by denying

There’s anything to see here,

Least of all the face of you,

And nothing of the other,

Magical, portal version

Of the world that’s just you, too.

An Incredibly Important Topic to Consider

The day comes on
Almost the way
The stars fade out—

If you’re sitting
Under fully
Leafed-out branches

In the small hours,
And you’re willing
To wait for it—

The first daylight,
Grey, picks its way
Through the leaves’ gaps,

One and by one,
The largest first,
Then the smaller,

Constellating
Your umbrella,
Blue canopy.

Long Roost

For some reason, the mind,
Which tends to circle, like
Just about everything

Else in this universe,
From spiral galaxies
Or orbiting planets

To continental crusts,
Weather systems of clouds
To clouds of gnats, comes back

Again to the few facts
It has about the life
Of a reclusive monk

Turned hermit, centuries
Past. This particular
Hermit had a small house

Of stones and a garden,
Which must have been hard work
To survive on alone,

No family, servants,
Or friends—rarely even
Visitors. He was cold

In the winter and wet
When it rained, and hungry
At least half of the time.

This was no kind of life
For a former abbot.
This was no kind of life

For anyone to boast.
It was the kind of life
Other people pity.

But when some visitors
From the monastery
Brought him ink and paper,

He wrote hundreds of poems
Expressing bemusement
At how much time he had,

How even gardening
And working on the house
And several naps a day

Left him with so much time
His head seemed to open
And his mind settled in.

Conversation’s Conjuring

You can see the endlessness

Of everything not yet done,

Said the put-upon mother

Of the next week’s bride-to-be.

The bride was nowhere in sight.

Discussion turned from weddings,

After a short while, to bears

And the one that’s been in town.

That bear was nowhere in sight.

Liberace’s piano

Came up as topic, briefly,

And from there to raspberries.

They’re dying. Well, they all die.

Those green shoots are just next year’s

Raspberries. Nowhere in sight.

Not Finding Them Home

None of the hatches are battened
In the village in late August.
A large cat dozes in the grass

Beside scattered rakes and trowels.
The planter boxes overflow.
A coffee mug and magazine

Have been perched on an outdoor chair
In front of one small house for days.
Up and down the street, windows gape.

The doors aren’t locked and half aren’t shut.
Someone’s rough sketch of a design
For a new shed lies on a porch.

Where that someone’s off to, who knows.
Huge clouds parade over maples.

Pet Sonnet

Even if nothing’s destined,

It’s destined once it’s happened.

Everything that happened was.

What you didn’t like you can

Scrutinize. Try to prevent

Something like that happening

Again. Something like that. Not

That. Again: something like that.

That which happened’s now destined.

That which happened, whatever

Happened, has always happened,

Be it nothing more than you

Bending a moment to scratch

The back of a neighbor’s cat.