Begun 4/25/94.  This poem was inspired by an art exhibit by Chris Ridenhour I saw at a gallery in the UW-Madison Art Department on 4/23/94.

Eggshells.

Life is like a bed surrounded by eggshells.

 
The bed, piled with fragmentary messages typed on lightly crumpled sheets of waxed paper, stands surrounded by open, broken, dried out eggshells, the risks of life, the expectations of different people, surrounding you.  They are meticulously created and assembled into an orderly square about the bed--by you.
At the foot of the bed hangs a small tree trunk, with dozens of pencils tied to the branches--with soft gentle strips of gauze. 
 
If you walk in a given direction, you crush some shells to pieces.  No matter where you walk, no matter how softly, how gently, you will break them, leaving a trail of footprints that cannot be hidden. 
 
Where then, will you walk? 
 
Will you leave? 
 
Do you want to leave? 
  
Will you leave the bed, crossing the sea of calcium to the open uncrunching land beyond? 
Will you untie a pencil--or many pencils--and write what is on your heart? 
 
Or will you leave them tied to the tree, bound like never-dropping fruits--never used, never sharpened, never broken, never thrown away--to propel you beyond the sea of eggshells, the broken, waiting expanse, that must be crushed somewhere if you are to cross it? 
Will you leave the bed, that seems an island of security, but really became a haven for fragmentary ideas and never finished anythings? 
 
Please choose.
In time the curator will come and remove everything. 

The leaves this year were different.

The leaves this year were different.
They were
Torn down in hordes, not
Few
By
Few.
 
Across my father's pond stands an exposed row of trees,
Which over the past two weeks have shared their beauty.
Their red centerpiece largely faded, the
Remaining yellow leaves
Carry the song of autumn dissolving,
Even as gray outlines of leafless trees emerge, like
Hungry wolves returning after their concealment in the
Folds of summer.  
 
Their beauty shared over the past two weeks.

Waiting For Snow.

(Somerville, MA, 11/18/86) 

 Waiting for snow,
Nose pressed flat
Against cold window,
Fogged,
Sight blurred by
Fixed summer screen
And breath-steam. 
 
Warm behind, ears
Reassured by the sound
Of a sleeping kitchen. 
 
Below, outside,
The leaves,
Chased in coveys,
Spinning lost souls on a
Desert concrete pavement,
Tearing circles into and off
The gutter. 
 
Nobody walks the carlined,
Lamp lit emptiness. 
 
The world retracted into apartments,
Awaiting the day made white. 
 

January, 1986.

(Begun January, 1986.)

Where there should be snow
There is a respite--
 
A break
In the crystalline days of winter--
But no new leaves. 
 
 
It rained and it rained and now the
Ground is sodden
And speaks
Underfoot, while overhead
A bumblebee looks for blooms. 
 
The waters have brought down brilliance,
And the woods sparkle from the lights of raindrops.
Yet they are hung from twigs as tears, or
Cast like seed-pearls along necklaces
That forgotten spiders wove in the summer.
 
In time falling off, they drop and burst against
The faded leaves of the ground
Or loose themselves in mute moss,
While overhead
A bird seeks food for its young, imagining spring. 

September.

(Begun 1985.)

Lord, what is praise? I asked,
With a cold heart that
Sought other things--
And not Him.
 
Oh child! said He, as
He touched the woods
 
And they caught fire with joy.
The trees praised Him for two whole weeks
 
In silence.
 
 
When they had offered everything,
Their leaves covered the ground to heal it.
I understood now and fled the woods,
Ashamed.

October.

(Begun 1985.)

These are the trees I love,
Shivering in the cold,
Their glories gone,
Their bodies bare.
Gaunt fingers stretched high,
Trembling.
  
Leaves.
In windy dispersion,
Tossed and caressed,
Dropped and flung
By a chill breath that
Furrows the waters and
 
Plucks branches.
 
The golden opinions of men:
Fallen,
Cast off,
Forgotten.
The forest of harps
Transformed into brittle scraping shells.

November.

(Begun 1985.)

Is this really you?
We met only yesterday for an ounce of time
On a path flanked in splendor.
You danced for me then and pleased these eyes.
Will you sing to quiet these ears?
 
How can we? they sighed,
The wind robbed our branches
And hurled our harps to the earth,
 
Where they lie forgotten and vanishing.
Our stiffening stripped fingers will wail in the wind and
Crack under the ice,
Until we have new ones to play.
 
Will you return to hear us next spring?
 
But the runner had left,
Making muted music on the sodden leafy ground.

December.

(Begun 1985.)

Hope is like a small bird amongst
The branches of winter,
Peeping and singing,
Flitting down to tease breadcrumbs
From the hard earth.
 
Within the gray cemetery of leafless woods
 
When thoughts are glazed over
As ponds,
And songs lie shackled together as
Layered leaves
In frozen puddles,
And the willow branches hang
Empty and silent,
 
Her voice,
 
A diminished song of the summer,
Rejoices.