Tag: ache

Sonnet for Late Summer

Dry grass, abandoned boat, and old shed

Late Summer’s Sun

Late summer’s sun has baked the grass to brown.
The days grow shorter with each passing day,
Soon, autumn’s chill will make the leaves fall down.
All of this aching beauty will decay.

And yet I love the shadows’ slanting trace,
The once green grain gone golden in its rows,
And how I love the lines etched in your face.
It’s funny, as love ripens how it grows.

The number of our days we do not know.
No sleeper knows if he will ever wake.
So come, let’s join above, between, below.
My dear, let’s cause our fragile clay to quake.
Let us make love as if it’s our last go.
Let us embrace like dawn will never break.

(2015)

Notes:  It’s not really late summer, but it just feels like it. The ground is parched, the foliage is showing its mortality, and I’m ready for some rain. Normally I would wait until September to haul out this sonnet, but this year it feels later than it is.

Extra credit to any poetry geek who can spot the homage to John Donne in this poem.

Poem in protest of spring

Late snowfall

COME GENTLE SNOW

Come gentle snow and cloak the ground,
Shroud budding branches all around,
Let not one scent of spring be found,
Make flowers wait.

Come frost and freeze the throbbing juice,
Break March’s short and shaky truce,
No sprout nor songbird yet aloose,
Let spring be late.

Come wind and make the oak leaves hiss,
When they descend no one will miss
Their brittle shade — no artifice
Can bring them back.

Come night and steal the season’s gain;
The verdure will begin to wane
Despite the wealth of easy rain
If it stays black.

Come sleep and shield me from the past,
Help me forget her I loved last,
Wrap safely me in sanctums vast,
Away from pain.

NOTES: We haven’t had that wonderful March snowstorm here in Western Washington yet this year.  So I’ll have to settle for a photo from last year.

We had some snow in late February, but I’m still pulling for a blizzard in March.

You see, I’m allergic to March here — the alder and cedar pollen are not kind to me.

Nearly 40 years ago when I wrote this poem protesting spring, I was an unrequited, tragic romantic. O woe was me!  I thought I’d never be happy again.  Of course, I was wrong.

If I can just make it through March to April, I should be fine.

Hometown haiku

Marshall, Missouri, 1968.
Courtesy of Susumu Wakana

Old streets remind me
I did not know compassion
when I walked them then.

NOTES: I have come into possession of a treasure trove of photos from the late 1960s taken by an old schoolmate, Susumu.  He was our Japanese foreign exchange student when I was a junior in high school in 1968 and 1969.

Across the years and across the internet, we reconnected and he sent me the photos he collected during his year in my hometown.

Susumu saw things through his camera lens that I had long forgotten.  These are shots I would never have thought to take.  Simple street scenes.  Iconic buildings long since torn down.  Teachers and friends long forgotten.

The gift of these photos is almost indescribable.  It is as though I am seeing my hometown again, for the first time.  I’m transported back nearly half a century to the place of my childhood, to the places where I lived my formative years.

No fancy Instagram filters are required.  These photos already have the faded Kodachrome quality you cannot fake.  They come with authentic poignancy.

These photos take me back to my youth.  And my heart is filled with questions.  What if?  If only?  Didn’t I realize?

Poem against spring

Late snowfall

COME GENTLE SNOW

Come gentle snow and cloak the ground,
Shroud budding branches all around,
Let not one scent of spring be found,
Make flowers wait.

Come frost and freeze the throbbing juice,
Break March’s short and shaky truce,
No sprout nor songbird yet aloose,
Let spring be late.

Come wind and make the oak leaves hiss,
When they descend no one will miss
Their brittle shade — no artifice
Can bring them back.

Come night and steal the season’s gain;
The verdure will begin to wane
Despite the wealth of easy rain
If it stays black.

Come sleep and shield me from the past,
Help me forget her I loved last,
Wrap safely me in sanctums vast,
Away from pain.

NOTES: We had one of those late snowfalls last week. This time of year in Western Washington, there are already signs of spring.  Those signs were utterly–but temporarily–obscured by the snow.

Nearly 40 years ago when I wrote this poem protesting spring, I was an unrequited, tragic romantic. O woe was me!  I thought I’d never be happy again.  Of course, I was wrong.

Today, I still dread the onset of spring, but for different reasons. When March comes, the alder tree pollen starts to bloom. And that’s when I start sneezing.

If I can just make it through March to April I should be fine.

Night walk poem

I have walked now and then in rain.
EXPERIENCE

I have walked now and then in rain,
Walked until the road gave way to stones.
I have known a thing or two of pain.

I’ve returned home alone at night
To rooms that don’t speak back to me at all.
I have stayed up late without a light.

I have watched the half-moon disappear,
Watched until the frost benumbed my face.
I have seen the seasons of the year.

I have left warm, pleasant rooms for plain,
Left without a word explaining why.
I have known a thing or two of pain.

NOTES:  It’s a cold, rainy night in the Pacific Northwest, and I’m stuck miles away from my honey.  It seemed like a good occasion to dust off this old poem.