Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Sailing










A flotilla of sailfish congregate
In the rainy silence of the upper basin
Each experiment with healing in 5 mph wind
As if genuflecting to the black water
Acknowledging the meaning of ripples

The determined dance with defeat
The tourists in their duckboats
Straining to see through the fog
The jogger in yellow slicks
Imagining yesterday's marathon

From my aerie vantage
I can spy 20 years of missteps
The reaching and rejection
The naivete and narcissism
The guilt of the living

That I can still bear to look
Is the paradox of survival
To live with mortality named
To know where defeat lurks
And go sailing in the rain


Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Ellison















Fourteen stories up
In a building I imagine
Is named for Ralph Ellison
I look down on playing fields
Invisible to the teams
Soccer and Little League
That I pretend to scout.

My room has reflective glass
Inscrutable, impenetrable
Like a Trooper's shades
A million dollar view
Of a river that offered black silence
In response to my snowshoe inquires
Now sparkling, swollen with melt.

I can see the lives move by
On fields and bike paths
As I so often did myself
Wondering who is more real
Knowing that reality is ecumenical
As is the river dark in Dover
Now alighted and alive below me.