Poem 46: Two Haiku

Though there was a line

We stepped into the bulb room

Hit by the scent: spring

The pond still frozen

Despite the balmy March sun

It held as they kissed

Poem 45: River Rats

A pizza house in Athol

By the window

On an April night

A beer

Some mozzarella sticks

A number for our boat

Good luck, they say

In the next booth

In this town

The prospect

Of a rough paddle

Makes you a citizen

Poem 44: March

In the darkened house,

done with grading, I pause

To look out of the window

At the dark husk of winter

Still haunting about our doors.

Mounds of snow, fallen

And shoveled a month ago

Have done little but crusted

And dulled. The snow fort

Now seems like a penitentiary.

There will be no thaw. Morning

Will be just as hard. March,

You are cruel.

Poem 43: It is the leaves that are yellow, and old

Two paths, I said, diverged

In a wood. A yellow wood,

You’re right. And they are

Roads, but that seems confusing.

In the wood, you walk on paths

Leaves crunch under your feet

If there were cars – if there are

Cars, they take you back to where

You’re escaping from.  But to return

To this intersection, this cross, yes

You look back. I’m on the one less.

The one with less. Well, just being

In the woods, right? What you see

Are the old roads, sometimes with

Stone walls, and there used to be

No woods at all. Someone walked here.

Lots of people, maybe. And they

Are gone. Standing here, come to

Think of it, I do hear cars. How

Can I not? And they pass, and I

Stand here, and I marvel at the noise

That carries through the woods

Such that you can hear it on one path

Or the other.

Poem 42: O Forsythia

O, forsythia, all through my need for you
that is to say March, that is to say decades
All the gray days in my gray house, the gray
days of my dry youth. At the hardware store,
they said I couldn't kill you. They said,
You'll have to fight this one back.
And here you are, a smack of yellow
across my face. Can I confess, I've wanted
to bury my face in your petticoats,
I've wanted to prowl the streets
muttering about rivers, about melting.
I've always loved the river, even when
it was low and you could see the ribs
of rock. That brick gatehouse, diverting
water for the canal. O forsythia,
it's Spring and they're coming to take
away my bloom. How I find myself
staring at the fervid buds of the Magnolia,
even my pink rhododendron. Crocus hips,
tulips, all that reaches out of the earth
to bloom. Forsythia, when they take it
will you be there? Forsythia, will you tell me
you'll still burn yellow for my sake?

Poem 41: Sputter

At least I know
how
to pile kindling
how to twist newsprint
to strike sulphur
At 63 degrees and wakeful
At wondering
about regrets, about real estate
The wind runs up the mountain
Often, he reckons
Coals, ash, embers
What is the job of a father
to fold expertly a diaper
to wake up bleary
to know what lonely sounds
the night makes
Among my special skills
pause, restart
crouch and watch
the flickering flame
All the other things, I forget
what I'm doing
how to keep
What's important is the draft
oxygen and fuel
But always, there is interrupt

Poem 40: Fourteen Lines

You were waiting for me, pink
Silk and black dye in my dream
Though it was bitter, bitter cold and the baby
Though the other night, the water

We waited in the sunlight for the baseline
In the room, the phone never rang
And the nurse brought us juice
The numbers on the monitor were all over

And the student with the broken finger
Despite all the pillows and the coughing
In my dream you reminded me

In the kitchen I remembered
The turning over and the 2 a.m.
I'm glad he was not born on caucus day