April 30

In the early days before

we’d seen the stars we

sat beside ourselves on

the shadowed stoop

waiting for a sign but

the sign that came

was not what we

were waiting for

a sparse flicker

in the murk

a nod in the

bleak dark

April 29

In the meantime while waiting

you just have to say words

they don’t have to mean

everything they don’t have

to save time or bring

memory to mind they don’t

have to spare the truth or

the lie that loosens it: what

you want is to go home

April 28

The music comes and goes

my hands are old

but still game to try

the long hiatus

hasn’t seemed to make

much difference:

that is the modest

advantage of original

mediocrity

April 27

This time of year

I think of Frost,

his Nothing Gold

Can Stay, and wish

I’d written that.

Yes, “leaf subsides

to leaf,” but just

before then, just

at that moment

of gold, all is held in

being, all is possible

before the fall.

April 26

The drylands don’t attract me;

I grew up under dark evergreens

and over water—sheets of it,

spreading like silver foil to the

horizon. From the air it looked

solid and even when my father

put his small plane down

on it, the floats kept us from

disappearing under the shining

mantle. Flat, like sand, but not

empty, not that kind of place

where souls and thirsts are exposed.

April 25

A trying day

a day full of effort

easier to fall

down now

and farther

to go harder

to accept

the trying

Always late

when the time

matters

and never

when it

doesn’t

The plug gets pulled

and the water

swirls away

down one

drain or

another