Sunday at the Park

Some mysticisms
empty the self for good, or
so it seems. As a

schoolboy center field
was my choice. A few fly balls,
dandelions, birds.

Life had other plans.
Now I watch the game unfold
at the park. I bring

my singular full
life. The god of baseball plays
tricks all afternoon.

Psalm

I write another
useless poem in praise of
the Keeper of all

mortal things. It’s a
pretty Spring day; New England
earth loosens our snow.

We praise our Keeper
through all this change. Beautiful
red-haired Lenaje

flies home tomorrow.
Today we praise our Keeper
to keep her safe, her

papa safe, her boy-
friend safe and ready to start
over when it’s time.

Floating Dream

‘In the floating dream
of this life’ (Charles Wright): I
beg your pardon. Post-

humous vision is
quite possible here and now,
what you call this life.

The simple beauty
of your sleeping lover’s hand
outside your duvet:

that is no dream. Take
it in. It comes as a gift
you do not deserve.

Ideas

I sit becalmed at
my table waiting for an
idea. Not a second

wind, mind. Emptiness,
achieved over a lifetime
of loss, leaves nothing.

No. It will be a
wind at my back, a sudden
push into open

water. I don’t mind
waiting. Other small craft dance
on the horizon.

Roger Williams Park

The poem resists
the intellect but beauty
escapes from the mind

and leads the poem
on a wild goose chase. That’s called
a happy ending.

Yesterday I broke
my promise to myself to
never enter the

park. Useless trees, me-
andering streams, carousels,
hill over dale, I

found myself in
the labyrinth, pleased as a
child with the beauty.

Pity

I avoid the news.
I read Aristotle The
Poetics but here

too terror, pity.
Even this cool customer,
thinking to save the

poets from Plato,
not to mention Nietzsche, says
pity is called for.