And so it was
after hours of walking
there in the road
the apple of despair.
Or was it a chestnut?
I can’t remember now
so many years it’s been.
I picked it up
thinking I knew despair
could handle it but
not by throwing it
into the woods.
A deer might find it or
a porcupine, a snuffling
hedgehog. For the
wildlife along that road 
there was already lurking
the opportunity for despair.
The world grew old with all
the illnesses of age so I
went on, holding the orange or
was it an egg, unbroken,
of despair, knowing it 
takes many forms. 
Besides, I wasn’t ready 
to release it into that landscape,
the forest so quiet, meadow
misted as the rising sun fell
on grass heavy with last night’s rain.
I walked then with despair
lying still in my hand
the grapes or
perhaps cherries
growing dry
starting to shrivel
as the village and
my own fields
came into view.
                        

I look out the window to an overcast sky.
Three bicycles glide from the gravel road
beside the house, in a place where we wait
a long time for the light.
Is it just a melancholy humor talking?
Or is my life really a dung beetle
feeding on sorrow as a kind of
droppings of the happier moments
that pass away like those bicycles?
My own wheels spin, keeping me
balanced while the light gathers
the way the footsteps of the jailer 
gather as he approaches the cell where a man
waits for news of his parole.
It will arrive, breaking through this
cloudy humor, the light that follows
people on bicycles, 
or shines on the lobsterman
who finds six keepers in one trap, 
that breaks over refugees greeted at the door
of a foreign shelter. The light 
that warms the room
where a man wakes up to learn
he has another day to live.
                        

After “Danse Russe” by W.C. Williams
 
What comes to mind this morning
is Dr. Williams’ solitary dance.
I spend a lot of time
alone in my room but
I do not dance naked
in front of a mirror
nor did, not even when
I was slim enough,
skin smooth enough
to be a source of admiration.
After all it can be risky
looking in the mirror at
my naked body.  Someone
might look in accidentally
and wonder what 
I could possibly see in myself, 
hopping about like that.
I’d sooner leave the body,
smooth or wrinkled, naked or
in flannel pajamas,
and turn to the window.
It opens to a view of the lake, 
to the dock, a canoe
resting on it, birches
white along the shore.
Dancing in the mirror I would
miss the family of loons
swimming out from the reeds.
The parents lead the chicks
in what I imagine is
a morning lesson in diving.
The water is mirror flat but
they ignore what it reflects
in favor of what a loon sees
before it disappears
below the surface.