Following appear in “Thin Places”

Man in a Green Field

I am not my father’s elbow,
or the shadow of his hips—
but I have his round lips,
and penchant for pursing.
Career man though he was,
wrangling over annuities
and mutual funds, I often
found him wrestling
with the yard’s entropy,
waging an awkward war
against disorder in front
of our suburban home—
pushing back the tall grass
in our ditch with a sickle
and a can of gasoline.
I’d admire the fire
from a window—
though once I crept
closer, watching it burn
an arm’s length away.
His weekends were spent
crafting our scruffy grass—
power-mowing perfect
stripes, holding back
the tide of chaos with ardor.
He sold insurance,
but worked the yard
in earnest, like Sisyphus.

Absent Without Excuse

Child of paradox, shortstop, math wizard,
jokester, perennial existentialist—
I made it through Either Or
before the class had read Old Yeller.
At recess, I set out across town to disprove
Zeno’s paradox of infinitesimals,
and might have succeeded,
had it not been for the truant officer
who recognizing my curly hair,
marched me summarily back to school.
In detention, I ascended to seventh heaven
in an inkling, brazenly transfiguring
into Mickey Mantle on opening day.
But the detention officer, transported
to Yankee stadium as an umpire,
sent me home with a letter for my parents.
Taking the longer route, I got lost chasing
a bird and found myself in a meadow,
contemplating each green blade as though
the field had a secret only I could keep.

Forging New Paths

Waking early, as August sun sublimes dew,
spreading lighter air like a blanket
over creeping things, and those with wings,
hallowing their green halls of new grass—
what is it I expect from this morning,
whose fate is to move shadow into light?
When will the surprise of it wake me further,
into a realm jeweled with wisdom?
In this corridor, an interspecies kinship is forged—
spring worm and fly, gulls’ distant notes,
ever plaintive, a line of crows on the fence,
armored like guardians of a deeper truth.
My dog, in her last years, is unfazed by such magic.
She noses the gate open, plods to where she last
remembers her tennis ball, muzzle to ground.
Crows scatter as she advances, more like donkey
than dog, dignified by courage to the end,
kindred under the skin, and in the earth we’ll end in.