As I Look Into My Daughter's Eyes
In her green eyes
is the Atlantic
the ancient waters
where life first bolted
from the stars
dreamed itself into being
millennia ago
dreamed her green eyes
and the green world
within them.
For Alexis
From Black Ice Rising
Grassy Pond
East Harwich, Cape Cod
Massachusetts 1995
Through the clear, black ice
the stems of waterlilies are splayed
like erratic starshapes.
Each fat bulb
like a still heart
waiting to be born
offers a bright, notched disk
from its center
a coral-gold leaf
either risen too soon
or waiting to rise
held fast in the black ice
where I walk gingerly
as though afraid
the frozen pond will open
and swallow me
and I will find myself once again
not bound to this world
of my baptism
not rooted and waiting
but flung like a ball
of frozen matter
back through the vast, inky spaces
from before, when I was not aware
of this charged dreaming
this hunger, this thirst.
Now, I stoop to study
these ugly dollops covered
with pondweed and decay
where the germ of next summer's
pale, waxy waterlily
waits to open like a white cup
into which will pour rain
and light
such a cup as the ancient ones
must have raised to their lips
as they ordained this watery world--
where sweet water mingles with the salt
in the tidepool of our beginnings
our own watery births
like that of the first man and woman
to rise from the sea
to name stars
to drop to their knees
and pay homage to it all
as I now do...
bending in awe, bowing my head
in the long prayer of my life.
Newbury Street
The restaurant a few doors down
from the guest house where we stayed
would throw out large stiff window boards
which advertised special culinary offerings.
The boards were often decorated with
appropriate artwork. My favorite was
a winter scene where the snow glittered
as though it were real. After the restaurant
closed I would carry them back
to the guesthouse, construct tunnels
the small room transformed into a here
and a there. I would enter at one end
peer down the long shadowed tunnel...
begin my journey toward the light.
Between Hereford and Gloucester Streets
Back Bay 1950's
The Ancient Catalpa: Winter
(part of a series of poems about the tree)
The thick trunk leans
against the ladder
like an old woman
with a walking stick
who pauses
to catch her breath
to observe the world.
The ladder saved her
from a nasty fall
during the last hurricane.
The bark deeply seamed
is etched now with early snow
as she holds a gnarled finger
to the arctic wind
to gauge its intentions.
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