Cover your mouth: it’s
impolite to laugh at no-
thing particular.
It’s all-too human.
And it separates one no-
thing from another.
That graceful young thing
over there breaking up? Makes
life out to be gift.
Author: Tom D'Evelyn
Tom D'Evelyn is a private editor and writing tutor in Cranston RI and, thanks to the web, across the US and in the UK. He can be reached at tom.develyn@comcast.net. D'Evelyn has a PhD in Comparative Literature from UC Berkeley. Before retiring he held positions at The Christian Science Monitor, Harvard University Press, Boston University and Brown University. He ran a literary agency for ten years, publishing books by Leonard Nathan and Arthur Quinn, among others. Before moving to Portland OR he was managing editor at Single Island Press, Portsmouth NH. He blogs at http://tdevelyn.com and other sites.
Stunned by World’s Worth
In the white aza-
lea the robin calls to-
night as I pass by.
Azalea brighter
than the moon over the bay,
Robin still brighter.
As I step in and
out of these shadows I doubt
my deeper values.
Whitecaps
Jocund Spring day in
New England—-the white, the blue,
sense of abstractions.
The people restless,
tyranny the new option.
The Gaspee still burns.
The book in my hand
like whitecaps as I doze in
fear of what’s ahead.
Memorial
Poppies glow in foot-
hill roadsides and desert views
of childhood picnics.
Memorial Day.
Mother all smiles in the heat,
her wide-brimmed straw hat.
That distant look in
Dad’s eyes. South Pacific gore.
Flesh of the poppies.
The Song
When you could no long-
er walk you’d play Dusty Spring-
field and sing along
beside yourself. Blue-
eyed blues. And you couldn’t sing.
Now years later in
a crowded room that
sound will pierce the difference
as for the last time.
I alone hear it.
People look startled when I
start and sing along.
Our Space
The poverty of
apple blossoms blowing a-
cross the potholed road
as much a part of
Spring as the cars of tourists
invading our space.
Theologians,
ask no more questions. It’s clear
whose side God is on.
Funny Little Fly
The first fly of Spring
makes its way up the window.
Transparency sucks.
I used to want to
get the last laugh; my poems
had these trick endings.
Nothing was really
funny. Now I catch the fly
in my hand and o-
pen the window. Let
go like that it disappears
into its own life.
