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A life should, like a sonnet, be contained,
Yet free within bounds of some dear order.
Alive each moment, clear, yet soul restrained,
Attuned to nature; mark well its border.

For life, as art, its precious light may shine
Beyond its end. And so may poem be praised
Long after author pens its words to sign
A faith that spirit may be always raised
Above the plane we see from day to day.

Each life, if like a verse, would end aware
That time, if nothing else, cannot be stayed,
Nor form dismissed without a care.

To live as well as one may do with grace,
To die and know that all is in its place.

I take you for granite,
For steel, for stone–
Mutability is not love’s style.

Construct the heart
With mettle of faith,
The love will grow
Without guile.

Oh, how I hate the
transients of earthly bliss–
Peace, joy, tenderness
Those carpetbaggers,
hobos and vagabonds
That blithely glide
on hearts opened wide
And never to remorse
are remiss.

His body forgot what love could induce
His mind saw all the ends that were loose
His heart lay in a gray flannel vault
His soul swam alone in the depth of its fault

The years came and went: He pondered them well
He counted the ways he’d managed to quell
Too many, too often, too much and too sweet
In courting life safely, he married defeat.

I am Earth, not your mother
Sentient, solid
Unforgiving, uncaring.
Crawl over me, tiny ones
In and out, poking yourselves
Up and down
Like ants, like worms

You, capable of so little,
Worry so much

Cataclysmic mighty meteors
Snapping rotations
Huge jerkings on my
strings of galactic gravity–
These jar me.

A small filth on my skin, a blemish
These do not concern me

My power is deep
Erupting, exploding
Shattering your technology

My mantle of blue
subsumes transforms cleanses
Regeneration–not just a word

I ask nothing of you

You take so little

I am not eternal
–but almost

Say your prayers, tiny ones
But not for me

I think that time should have to tell
Its secrets and its woes.
A face’s grace will mostly lie
In traces of the blows
Struck gently on its youthful brow–
Minutely, one by one,
As pine shats whip the comely earth
To signal summer’s done.
But pine shats form a springy mat:
Inviting counterpane–
Cushion for a lover’s arch–
Accumulated gain.

A time ago — when I was young —
A towhead boy of five,
I ran and jumped, a sword it hung
So grandly by my side.

No dragon was too fierce for me,
No pirate made me run–
I slew them each, ah–could it be
Courage was simply fun?

A time ago — when I was young —
My head began to whirl,
My sword became a bitter tongue,
I learned I was a girl.

When I die I will fold inward quietly
A book shut gently
That has been savored.

In the last moments I may
Flip through the pages,
Skimming the high points,
Omitting the dull.

May I be shelved in the memory
Of loved ones.

Have I blessed you, oh little one,
Sweet sleeping child, my Alison?
Each night I pause to watch you sleep,
To touch your cheek and pray you keep
Your presence warm as morning sun.

The girl is mother of the woman,
Her birth as troubled as this one,
This one who guards your slumber deep.
Have I blessed you?

Your dreams upon the night winds run,
Your life with me will soon be done.
The day will come, my heart will leap
For joy or pain you sow or reap,
As woman born, new life begun.
Have I blessed you?

October 4, 1983