Even Now
Even now the lion sculpture by the river,
the one made of so many old metal washers,
shines as best it can in the subdued light.
The water rushing over the falls sounds
its deep chords, playing off the wind
in the maple and linden trees, and we
find the one spot of sun.
Even now, with this cool autumn falling,
we’ll walk by the river, and we’ll keep walking
past houses and fields, past statues standing
or fallen, through streets and over bridges,
below them the merging of so many colors—
red, brown, yellow and auburn—in cool
swirling waters. We’ll make way
and keep making way and send praise
to the day, to the towns that endure,
and to the lion that roars above the river
pulling particles of gold from the sun-flecked
air, from the autumn trees, sending them
out for the world, for the days ahead,
for the making way, for the roaring.
-Published in Covid in the Times of Covid, Small Pond Press
Bardo Over the Hudson
Words born of vibrating air at West 26th Street,
words dancing patterns on the sidewalk, painting
themselves on purple pansies below
the Columbus statue in Central Park,
startling me out of any remaining winter.
Words, quivering outside Café Europa,
hovering between crème brûlée
and Carnegie Hall.
Words adorning the Hudson’s wide
throat as my train rambles northward.
They flicker like unborn fireflies
unversed in the art of direction, or
rhythm, or sound. They are the ones
I want, these in-between words, lingering
low in their bardo like spaces, sacred gaps
of which the mystics speak. Smoky mist
drifts low over the Hudson—between
Gotham and Lake Tear of the Clouds,
between life receiving and life giving.
Breath of being, breath of becoming.
Poetry.
-Published in Big City Lit, Hudson Headwaters Press
Published Poems in Print and Online Journals
A Slant of Light (Codhill Press): Returning to Earth
Addison County Independent: “One Gesture at a Time,” “Winter Solstice.”
Best of Burlington Anthology 2017: “Blue Hour,” “Night Flight.”
Big City Lit (Hudson Headwaters Press): “Bardo Over the Hudson”
Birchsong Anthology: “Before Anything,” “After the Lecture on Duende”
Blueline Literary Journal: “After the Lecture on Duende.”
Blue Stone Review: “Morikami Gardens.”
Every Drop of Water: “April.”
Fired Up: “The Tremor.”
Mountain Troubadour: “Before Coffee,” “Returning to Earth.”
Parnassus Literary Journal: “Morikami Gardens.”
Plant-Human Quarterly: “Before Anything.” “Even Though”
Poems in the Time of Covid, Small Pond Press: “Even Now.”
Quiet Diamonds, 2021 Anthology, Orchard Street Press: “Arrival.”
Quiet Diamonds, 2023 Anthology, Orchard Street Press: “The Juxtaposed Open their Boundaries to One Another,” “Second Tuesday in August.”
The Gardan Journal: “Tentatively”
Zig Zag Magazine: “Art in Springtime,” “Pressing Leaves”