Poems

And on my travels I came across
a boy holding his purple heart
in his hands like a broken cup. I touched
the handle – it turned into a bluebird

The Captain’s keen to explore, go deeper,
Take core samples, measure astronomical tilt.
He says the clues are down there and the truth;
Our forebears, numerously well-preserved,

at 86 and 91 they are still together
more or less
and greet me at the door
as if I am the punchline to a joke
they were just recalling

I walk toward a paddock bordered by cypress trees.
Philip Hodgins is on a tractor harrowing forty acres.
I can’t see his face but I know it is him
methodically going about his business,

Friends knew he lived alone
in an old fashioned block of apartments
with large windows facing the sea
and a lift like a lion’s cage

The world, the tranquil punctual gyroscope,
Is more or less at peace after her fashion,
Broad bowels work, creatures rejoice or mope,

the west coast of irish light
is inside everything and through everything
like the washing on the line, the pegs
the sky, the wind, this window, and your hands, your eyes

I could say hello to things.
Theodore Roethke

i.
The hand’s wave,
when it comes –

Too hot and humid to do more than drowse
And slip – who knows how brief the interims? –
Into a chafed unconsciousness,