Early September, My Father


Already it’s the season of decrease— 
afternoon light
sharper, darkness
reaching down earlier
when I walk the field with the dog
each evening.  The stars appear
too soon,
too much change
catching up, the bleeding
that came to my father’s brain,
the surgeon’s hand like a god’s hand
that stopped the leak,
the twilight
still coming down.  





Sleep after Travel


descends
like the path
we took on Oia,
the sinuous wide-
spaced stones that made
a stairwell
to the caldera edge,
the taverna
that was ours 
for hours,
bread sopped in oil,
octopus and olives,
tiny goblets of raki,
the Greek sun
slicing the water,
tipping our world
to dark





On September 19


I think of Keats, walking the hills
beyond Winchester, as if he was
the first witness 
to barred clouds and stubble fields
warmed by low-angled light.
This struck me so much in my Sunday's walk
that I composed upon it, he wrote his friend.
He passed to us the hedge crickets,
the redbreast's song, this richly
dying day we inhabit, mellow
air, and gourds brimming with ripeness 
to the core, on the cusp
of breaking.  




Living by Water


Give me the nearness of water— 
boats cleaving wind-brushed 
gem-green, molten grey, and sails
birthing full colors to air— 
the way a child might wish
for the sight of her mother
through an open door,
arc of her mother's hands
turning the pages of her book,
stirring the broth on the stove;
the ruffling of her skirts
as she moves, her hair
accepting whatever light
passes through the window.