WORK IN PROGRESS
“What’s ragged should be left ragged.” Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, 45.
In the pale Spring air
echo steady hammer blows
from high roofers. At
my feet swirl lucent
blossoms from the pear. Look up,
look down: the whole world
is background for this
and this! All’s subspecie
aeternitatis.
WORK IN PROGRESS
At last the fidelity of things opens our eyes— Zbigniew Herbert
Spring sunshine. Children
underfoot on the cafe
patio. Journey
done. Empty regrets.
Radiance forsworn to catch
the next train. Always
moved by moving on.
Now, the final fermata,
this helpless laughter.
WORK IN PROGRESS
The world can save us—Wong May
What is grief’s other?
I walk and walk and walk. I
pass the sunning ducks,
green or emerald
where they float. I pass the Bay,
cold cobalt toward
sundown. Your colors,
we’d say. Now the world’s colors.
Grief returns the world.
Your colors endure,
walk after walk. The emptiness
you left fills with them.
The End of the Road
Where I live, winter
is known for deep snow, summer
for swans in the cove.
The appearance of
the snow-white swan hereabouts—
whole lot of walking.
WORK IN PROGRESS
An ornamental
lemon tree, the patio
in dry Bakersfield—
boyhood companion-
ing cool solitude.
I’d sit out there and watch it.
Tiny white blossoms,
sour, grape-sized fruit, slow
slow invisible growth. This
taught me how to write.
“…the radical soul … its landscape and inner domain.” Geoffrey Hill
Seagull’s cry over
the Bay. My radical soul
flashes beyond me.
WORK IN PROGRESS
It takes some ego
to push yourself out the door
on a cold April
morning for a walk
and see crowding your neighbor’s
yard blazing crabap-
ple trees. Take your walk.
Other power will become
self power as you
pass exuberant
dogwood trees spreading the news:
Go slow: Nirvana.
Holy Saturday.
When Jesus arrived in Hell,
it was quite empty,
until we heard the news.
There are other narratives.
We all talked at once.
Later I watched an
egret liftoff over me.
That empty fullness.
WORK IN PROGRESS
I moseyed out to
a spot on the breakwater.
A sunny April
unseasonable
day for a look at the Bay.
But all I saw was
bareness —a raw stump
where an old twisted pine had
framed the immense blue.
The shock wore off as
I wandered away thinking:
O Maunday Thursday!
Metaxyturn Diaries 