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Saturday, March Roundabout


A week of work,
working the weak,
the weak work
of the working week.
O for the day of done,
the done with a day,
the day for the weak
done working,
for the day, yea the day,
the day of the book,
the broken book
and brook breaking
and the day of the walk
and the walk breaking
by the sun baking
on the brook, the droning
of grass like a green guitar,
the condoning glance
of lilies and crows
who know how it goes,
the gaining of sap and pop
while languishing away
in the mild and rote
without even a note
or nod of explanation.
 
First appeared in Verse Wisconsin.
 
 

Vernal Equinox


The neon-green moss weathers in light,
shrinking like homeless who peel off
 
donated layers of clothes and snap
at slow flies like bored outfielders.
 
I warm my back on the concrete
wall of the county court center
 
waiting to rejoin the jury to judge,
to leave an indelible brand
 
on either victim or perpetrator,
hoping that one will try to forget,
 
if lucky, and the other,
if challenged by faith, to forgive.
 
The resurrected rise,
the resuscitated walk,
 
the damned appear
as defendant and victim.
 
Light will bother one,
darkness the other,
 
both will bother me.
I am the balance of the scales.
 
Faced with crime, I wear
the blindfold of spring.




​
March Intentions
 
​
The days of waiting for the lilies to bloom
and the crows to fly over are over.
 
I’ve got one thousand things to do
and washing the hammock’s the first.
 
I’ve got a sledgehammer to break concrete
and redwood to reline the spacers between cement,
 
nuts and bolts sitting in a bit of gasoline
to clean off their accrued crud
 
from a lifetime of service of holding things together,
no differently than a middle child
 
who serves as family stickum
in therapy finds grime and gunk to eliminate. 
 
Grunge builds when things stick together,
and a little distance gives rain and wind chance
 
to work their rites of purification.
I’ve got fingers that itch for bleach,
 
thumbs that want to go raw
turning and twisting the last threads
 
of a damnable screw that will not stop
the job it was meant to do.
 
Here’s a hinge that creaks from lack of use,
rust that has taken permanent residence,
 
a ladder that waits upside the back workshop
misnamed for toil that should occur there,
 
which I intend to start just as soon as
I intend to get started.