A Psalm of Gaia

Athens, Georgia
November 1, 2018

She leads me beside a vernal pool 

where swamp frogs trill the early spring. 

Her breath refreshes musty air 

and I sense the chill on mud-slick skin.

She turns me loose in a garden world 

and weaves a mid-summer feast.

Her leaf-green shadows cool the days 

and a chorus of katydids comforts the nights.

She lays me down in an autumn meadow 

bobbing with skippers and bees. 

Her gentle sunlight dries the dew

and I feel the warmth on petals and wings. 

She takes my hand on winter nights 

and guides me down a darkened path. 

A thousand stars pierce the sky 

and I sense the harsh beauty beyond.

Though the night wind stings my lungs 

and ice invades my bones, 

through pain I know that life abides, 
to kindness life ascends. 

A Close Encounter with an Old Field

It’s just an old field. 

I have been back more than once, 

perplexed 

at how ordinary 

in the light of late afternoon, 

or morning, or the glare of noon. 

It’s gone. 

Whatever was is not now. 

It seems a shame, the un-tame rush 

replaced by shrug 

and stolen glance 

at time, 

the slow ride home for reheated leftovers 

to sustain my aging. 

It was fall

when I went wandering

blazed paths through pungent hush

of hickory, beech, and white oak stands 

to forest edge at right-of-way, 

cut straight across the curve of hills 

where I stood blinking back the light.

By the sun-splashed shores

of an old field grown wild

breaking over asphalt slabs

which once went somewhere

beyond the post hole fence

that vainly holds back green

swells of sumac and thistle

tangled in turbulence

sparkling in the silent roar

     Of a thin place opening

          onto an emerald sea

in the presence of which

I would remove my shoes

wash my soul in sunlight

and float the timeless warmth

to a new heaven

and a new earth.

But that was all, and over soon, 

just slant of light and insect drone, 

no still small voice that could be heard 

above the buzz and background trill, 

so was it somehow up to me 

to say aloud what hangs in air?

     All flesh is grass, its beauty as

          the flower of the field

that dies with fall – been said by better

than one who wanted just right then 

no more than now and this sweet earth 

of distant laughter, lovers strolling, 

stoic mother gently holding sleek 

cell phone and squirming child. 

Right there beneath the freshening breeze

a shadow passed 

inside of me:

     You hear your heart

          not that of mine

And in the voiceless hush I heard 

a hymn of weeds 

set in my mind:

     Take the sun and set your roots, 

          soften earth and heal the scars 

For several seasons I’ve returned, 

but never caught the song again, never 

heard what speaks from the silence inside.

On the Care and Feeding of Rodents

Athens, Georgia
August 25, 2018

There’s a squirrel on my bird feeder 

scarfing a batch of sunflower seeds 

which I bought for a tufted titmouse 

and a faithful pair of chickadees. 

But hidden on the kitchen deck –

a fully loaded water cannon 

dripping from the business end.

The boy inside me smiles. 

I shoulder the Stream Machine 

Hydrobolic Water Launcher™ 

and take my righteous aim –

justice shall be served wet. 

The thief is hanging upside down, 

hind feet clutching roof-top struts, 

front paws clawing side-wire mesh.

I see she’s a mama, and freeze,

recalling one cold winter evening

in the old Oglethorpe farmhouse 

where my wife caught the kitchen 

mouse in a live trap. It was late, 

so she placed the pest in a Mason jar.

Morning saw the slick rodent nursing 

a litter of newborn pups. The fate 

of generations hung in kindly hands.

Guess who fashioned a luxury nest 

in a snug corner of an unused barn 

stocked with water and nuts. Yes, 

the bond between mamas is strong. 

Love or scruples, I lower the soaker 

and toss a handful of peanuts instead.

Mama scoots down the slippery pole, 

greased last week (to no avail). 

As she scampers away with a roasted prize, 

my inner boy sighs and scans for snakes. 

Two chickadees light on the repurposed feeder.

If ever the peaceable kingdom would come 

it could start in a corner of creation where 

songbirds and squirrels share in the bounty 

next to a kitchen deck. Do you hear the call? 
I’m off to Kroger for peanuts and seeds. 

Dawn Dreams in a Glasgow Cafe

Glasgow, Scotland
July 15, 2018

Mid-July and zipped into layers, 

I huddle by the high glass walls 

of a Sauchiehall Street coffeehouse 

on a rain-soaked morning in Glasgow.

It is Sunday. Restless seagulls 

patrol the glistened streets. Pigeons 

pick manna from cracks in the sidewalk. 

Strangers roll suitcases down the damp plaza.

But I dream of the highlands – 

forests of birch and pine, 

breath of mist and fir. 

I kneel in the humus of needles and moss

and ponder the ruins of castles and clans 

wrought by the bonnie princes of war. 

A puff of wind ruffles the mirror-face 

of morning over an inland loch. 

I slip out of the chandeliered foyers 

and opulent halls of the once-important.

Sunlight cascades through cathedral trees 

and wavelets kiss the sea-aster shore.

Above villages swollen with summer –

sticky toffee, shops selling tartan –

I climb the bracken hillsides to high heather. 

Wind sweeps in from Iceland. My fingers numb

and somehow it’s August. How soon 

we haste to the land of before where dreams 

devolve to memories, cropped and cleaned, 

and hung in the hall by a wide-open door.

Here is a link to photos and video clips (cropped and cleaned) that accompany this poem. Thanks to Tracy Elder for leading our group through the Highlands and Islands.

Images from Scottish Highlands and Islands

Images from the Scottish highlands and islands. These accompany "Dawn Dreams in a Glasgow Cafe."

Photos:

Clouds over Little Minch and the Outer Hebrides

Cathedral trees

Downy birch

Forest of fir

High heather

Low tide on the Firth of Clyde

Sycamore roots with moss and boulder

The mirror face of Eilean na Moine on Loch Eilt

Videos:

Wavelets kiss the sea-aster shore (Firth of Clyde near the Mount Stuart House)

Loch Shiel at Glenfinnan (near the monument to Bonnie Prince Charlie):

High burn with bracken and heather:

Sound of Sleat in fog with ragwort and wind:

Stumbling Toward a Brampton Manor

Brampton, Cumbria, UK
July 12, 2018

When you exit the two-car train 

outside the village of Brampton 

and leave the lonely platform

tugging wobbly wheeled bags 

loaded with too much stuff 

the mile or two toward an old manor 

which your wife saw on the web 

and Google diverts you down a dwindling lane 

lined with loosestrife and ragwort  

where cattle crowd the mid-day shade 

and watch you weary on 

till the surface turns to gravel 

and your wife and daughter forge ahead  

while you tend bags beside the rusting gates 

of a deserted dairy farm 

composing prayers for traveling mercies 

parsing signs and portents 

as the Brampton black cat 

freezes your soul with yellow-green eyes 

and claims your suitcases 

well

this is when a lanky farmer named James 

ambles up, asks if you’re lost 

or Canadian 

then offers a ride in his sawdust truck 

and you choose to trust 

because this is Cumbria 

and life is good – 

your belly’s full 

and the sun held for one more day. 

Tomorrow, let it rain. 

Out as an Elder in June

Athens, Georgia
June 2018

I like to take a neighborly hike 

in the guise of an old man 

grasping a crooked walking stick 

with just a hint of a gimpy hip.

I am out before the heat, 

huffing up sunlit hills, 

passed by young runners 

and mothers rolling strollers.

They nod in my general direction, 

smile past the half-seen elder.

We share the same street 

but live in different worlds.

I walk as much in memory 

as in the searing moment.

I slip through years, 

misplace whole decades.

I zig-zag through shadows 

and pause in a pool of shade. 

A warm breeze sifts the mimosa 

and I breathe its pink sweetness. 

I study the borders of ragged lawns 

telling sumac from senna,

cats-ear from dandelion, 

wild petunia from woodland phlox.

A low drone fills the distance. 

The sun is high on my back 

as I saunter home through the green 

aroma of fresh-mown grass.

On the other side of sunset, 

I watch a field full of fireflies 

tracing seductive J-shaped loops 

as signs of love in the failing light. 

In the spell of affection, I nudge 

a young copperhead with the tip 

of my stick. He coils, then flows 
off the asphalt into the night.

Walking stick

Sumac

Spring's End

Athens, Georgia
late May, 2018

As surely as earth tilts toward the sun 

the long spring slumps into summer.

Today the pastel sunrise 

tints the cirrus with hints of pink.

Soon the sky will glow again

with the radiance of late May.

Now the catalpa is covered in white. 

Now the southern magnolia blooms.  

The scented air softens skin

and works its way into bones.

Wooden door frames begin to swell 

and windows stick in their tracks.

The canopy crawls with aphids 

trailing their sweet organic sheen.

As a hickory drips the sticky dew 

onto the frame of my Ford, 

I sense that spring has run its course.

Time to retreat to the edges of night –

The summer lull has just begun;

a hundred days of heat ahead.

Southern Catalpa

The Business of High Spring

Athens, Georgia
May 3, 2018

The soulful notes of a wood thrush cease 

when coded warnings cut the air.

A hawk swoops through the understory

culling anoles and unwary mice.

Chipmunks skitter for hidden dens. 

A buzzard wheels overhead.

Shadows and silence … 

The bustle resumes. 

Beauty is a privileged vision 

in a world hard about business –

Where nervous squirrels vie for the rights 

to your bird feeder 

and goldfinches fight for the tattered sack 

of thistle seed.

Where biting flies rise from brush 

and chiggers infest the meadows. 

They covet your blood 

for you, too, are a creature of spring. 

You are the doe and deer tick, 

the moth and the evening swallow.

You are the red-shouldered hawk 

and the unfortunate field mouse too slow to his hole.

You are the quickest chipmunk, 

the top finch on a thistle bag,

the orphaned fawn, the crippled wren,

bones and feathers pecking the dirt.

You’re the squirrel chased back to her perch 

chattering oaths and scratching fleas. 

You are the starboard hind flank flea 

and the chigger that missed her mark.

Spring is open air improv ballet. 
Its beauty is hard business.