June 30

I woke this morning to a flash then crash –
As raindrops rode like chariots out of heaven.

                                  *

Like falling bells they hit the ground
Rang and were silenced
Hundreds of thousands of bells
Bringing music to the dry land
Softening its core

                                  *

I stood at the window, listening and watching –
The sudden war and symphony of life.

The Burden Of Night

The day has collapsed like a tent folding to the ground –
all the warm air pressed out into the coolness of shadows,
where dew will weigh the backs of grass –
                                        a reminder of the burden of night...
As norturnal scavengers begin to move –
unseen but not unheard –
like the voices in a troubled mind.

Then back to the burrows and holes –
while the dew lifts as if attached to the sun.

Anticipation

I will wake this morning –
              build a fire.
Smoke will rise,
wood will lay down into ash.

I will eat oatmeal
with fresh berries –
red and black.

My feet will touch sand –
feel the warmth
of a burning star
thousands of miles away.

I will write words –
trying to remember
what came before
all this anticipation.

The Chair

A chair stands in the middle of the room –
                                        ready to catch the weary.
Planted as an oak in Millennium Park –
                                        a reminder of years of service.
Arms branching as with up-turned palms –
                                        as if to say –
Come, you that are tired, and I will give you rest.

Dragging The Past Out Into The Light

A scurry of clawing
as trash can lids crash –
like tin beetles
wobbling on their backs,
all is exposed –
Yesterday's garbage,
bound by twisty ties,
walled within dark plastic –
holds no sway for the hunger
of coon or opossum –
vampires of the night.

Feasting upon refuse in repose,
they spill onto dew-damped grass:
the cores of apples,
rinds of forgotten fruit,
a juice carton, half a bagel,
and section one, page twenty-one
of the Chicago Tribune
entitled: OBITUARIES.

The Crane

for Benjamin

The giant fishing pole reaches into a sea of steel fish
The men, as minnows, dart around the lowering line
Guiding the hook to the large scaled fixture of the deep
Unsettling it from gravitational sleep, raising it into the air
It sways and turns, held by the fate of progress
To be mantled in the heavens as the one that didn't get away
Giving structure to the architect's interpretation of bait and switch