Each night I return
to my room on the third floor,
in the trees, the stars.
My room welcomes me.
All day your laughter ripples
in the shops, the streets,
reminding me. Now,
at home I get the message:
I am free to go.
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.
Work Station
I love having Mt.
Hood on the horizon or
the Atlantic hard
by, I have copies
of Pound’s Cantos and Milton’s
Paradise Lost on
my shelves—-nothing
to compare with the unselfed
Creator’s reserve,
which as infinite
releases the wonder of
mountain, wave, poem.
Love’s Durance
Grief strips self-control.
I vomit a bit of meat
and it all comes back.
Her dire decline, her
vomiting. Grief surges. I
roll in viscous surf.
Lightheaded, I pray
to the patience of Being,
to our love’s let-be.
New Year’s Day
A sunny New Year’s
Day. Snow sinking in the grass.
Gutter’s guttural
song. The birds repeat
their real names over and over.
What’s new about it?
Ask again. God has
no more fitting way to get
out the word to be.
The New Normal
New Year’s Eve: last year
in statistics—-murder of
Jews, murder of blacks,
terror the new norm—-
tonight we stay home and read
something hopeful like
Tolstoy’s gospel of
the criminal one, slow sip
single malt, the long
finish God’s surplus.
To Issa! At New Years he’d
feel about normal.
Dialogue of an Aging Self
You say religion
means nothing to you. After
a long life, you live
in the watery
flux of the estuary—-
weeks of raw wet days.
Heaven and earth breathe
the same air. The finite whole
(your death) is enough.
You sense my power
in the absence at your end
of the rule of force.
And your kindness ex-
tends to the small ways I find
to show you my love.
Times Trans-shifting
This between-Xmas-
and-the-New-Year just seems vague.
Capital lays off
redundant workers,
Fascist police crack down on
revolting students
world wide. Politics
is opportunity. New
Year resolutions
include sorting through
my light verse. It may have some
value as history.
