Karthea

Sheer.

Windswept.

Sun-bleached.

Seaswept.

Marbled.

Thyme-sewn.

Templed.

Kaliskia

Kea, the Cyclades

Greece

August 2012

Up in the Clouds

Up in the clouds

it’s always sunny

or starry, and below

and beyond the soft edge

of any cloudbank

you’re resting on

or roaming over

there’s a sound

much like surf,

a distant report

like breakers

on a long, lone beach

whose volleys are muffled by seagrassed dunes.

From time to time, 

silver planes pierce through

heading north or west;

and pilots tip a wing

your way, like tipping a hat.

On rare occasions a rocket

races by en route to the moon,

or a hot air balloon rises

slowly, serendipitously,

Blue-Danubely, usually

with men in moustaches

and goggles who fuss

with ropes and flames

inside their floating picnic baskets,

as they ascend away.

Best of all, it’s never crowded

up here: never more than 

a few people watching the sunset

or sunrise, when all goes pink

or zinc -- or lounging, reading

or daydreaming. And maybe

there’s an old lab chasing 

a tennis ball, and a gull

that points

like a trusty weather vane

into the wind.

out on the South Fork

East Hampton,

New York

September 2008

Dit Zachte Land /  This Gentle Land

Cloth-white cows

float by, reflected

in the moss cool water

that streams through

this soft land,

where centuries pass

on summer afternoons.

Dalfsen

Holland

Late Summer

1998

from The Speed of Sight

Anguilla  /  Eel

                   for Rome, the Eternal City

The Tiber squirms

down the streetwise map

of Rome.

An indigo eel

bisecting

the superannuated city

and its layers of history.

Brushes against

the tentacles of

the Piazza Grazzini.

Snakes under

the Pope’s nose.

Bifurcates briefly

around Tiberina Island

and white bedfuls

of stagily ailing Romans.

Bends slowly

and bluely round the

Palatine and Aventine

Hills and the ringless

 Circus Maximus.

Before it disappears

a half inch past

the silent

 via Stradivari.

Roma

Italia

December, 2005

High Tide Rising

Marsh melds with river

to form one dun blue body, its

edges smooth, the rest rippling

as tide pours powerfully

in from sea.

A necklace of plovers

strings left over

the odd needles of reeds

tipping the surface;

a green heron dabs right.

Down the center

of the mingled waters

new-made islands, daily and thin,

some with scoops of sea myrtle,

dash long, short and green,

telegraphing a May day message

to the passing afternoon.

Kiawah Island,

South Carolina

May 1999

The Inside Passage

The upholstery is vast

and varied.

Overstuffed divans

wildly embroidered

with orchids

and scented with cedar.

Chaise-longues

with legs of living wood.

High, wing-backed chairs

of granite and quartz,

doilied with distant snow.

Seedling-stuffed ottomans

fit for the feet of Gullivers.

Fans of delicate ferns.

Headboards of hemlock

carved with eagles.

All carpeted with barks

and cones, and plush

mosses made for the touch;

all dappled

with serene summer light.

Frederick Sound

SE Alaska

July 2009

The Poet’s Bench

Poems are made here.

In the sun.

In the snow.

On the wind.

By the still

and moving waters,

seasons, wildlife

of the pond.

By a poet floating

in the open air.

Poems that open

from the inside

out; are open

to everything

flowing outside-in.

Their landscapes

communing, with

and without words.

At a simple bench

beside the woods.

on Kitchell Pond

in the Loantaka Woods

Morristown,

New Jersey

February 2017