Walking down a nameless street to 
     places known only to other faces

Alternatives. Other lives.
Walking – this time
              not riding, 
back from the ragged tramp through the wetted woods,
     light thinning,
angels dancing in the nexus

Explorers of the homely continent
      protected sanctuary of the Eastern woodlands
Green on the map
          last of the homelands in this corner of forever,
 known now by the names of its thieves,
     our ancestral takers

Hills blue only in imperial imagination,
     empyrean music
Even the winged spirits quiet in Janus’s month
Ways muddied by carbon-heavy skies,
     sky the painting of time’s genius

Straying footfalls troubled 
          through muddy reminders
     of hibernal rains 
diurnal storms, speech of the gods

Wampanoag grounds these 
     Massachusetts, names writ old on the placards
down seaside

Piecemeal past the stealing chariots
And we on the other side,
    hills, massifs rising, muscle bound erratic
hunched amid the aged trees
     common feet tracking mud-simple trails

Weather-blown off course
leaning into the curves of blacktop, winding
about the stillness-hunted haunts of Narragansett, Nauset,
     Nipmuc nation

Confusion’s rain, wheeled at length to the heave
      and shout of heavy transit
Smoke in all seasons 
     the slow-carbon fever, funeral

of the undiscovered side way
     some old one’s nameless retreat  
         ancient places, elder trees 
Swing-sets of later generations, 
          bird feeders, lidded cans

Stumbling still along the shadows 
     of the centuries 

Sing praise to all travelers,
     woodland creatures
serenados, taps of evening

Clear to the places
     promised by gods of the sky
wrought by the songs 
     songs of the old ones

cleansed anew 
     once more by the agencies 
       agents of time 

that spin earth’s time  
      and blooded     confusions
                        

on the wrong side of the Age of Divide 
toe stuck over the line, 
fell over, landed on my nose, 
dragged the rest along

Oh, there’s a garden path
A line, a dividing one,
Not life or death, exactly, 
But still middling, but on the road,
     last train out of Dodge,
See the golden orb bending over the horizon
See the tail caught in the door,
reluctant to leave,
dragging your – endnotes, I suppose

Ah, those middling days
thought they would last forever
Now they’re giving hassles for a payment to ride 
     on the last round-up

Have you overlooked your choice of mounts?
Are you placing bets?
Bunch of losers
Do not count the mourners,
Do not look ahead
    in fact, anywhere
Take a ride on a mount, a donkey,
     backwards,
taking in every square inch
     left behind
                        

Sunday afternoon 
A long walk on a long beach,
     winding in among the houses 
with a view of the ocean
Everywhere we go a look at the ocean:
     Look, don’t touch

Walking this sunny afternoon, between houses, seawall, 
     and the brilliance of sunlight turning the bay 
          a watercolor light blue 
Prisoners released from the sub-zero windchill 
    into the thankful outdoors 
The senses’ embrace of a familiar beloved!
I find I am nostalgic
     for what I do not know  

A world of the senses
A child’s backseat perspective
Promise of a feast of the senses
A hominid’s pleasure in the presence of the sea 
When I dragged my hands in the dirt
did I look forward to such days,
tails tied to branches overlooking the bay?
 
Or some early day's pleasure
The weekend ride, closeted with siblings 
     to a place of pleasure
 
Some quaint, untrafficked route in memory’s back alley
      some Sundays
who was it that walked alone
     or in company?
What diffident deity ruled in the mid-afternoon
What meaning, to the memory 
     that fails to arrive?

The end of the film 
when the protag walks a seaside street 
      to a quaint somewhere 
meant always for return