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stopping by

(for poet Robert Frost who died in 1963)

the wind blew

his hair across his face,

as he squinted, snowblind,

in the brilliant cold of early January

and tried to tame the pages

and his eyes,

the world waiting for his new words,

his inaugural poem

for our fair young prince,

who we would lose

later the same year

frost left us;

the wind blew sparks of hope

into all eyes,

that day in 1961,

when frost, unable to see

in the snow glare,

recited, instead, from memory

“the gift outright”:

“the land was ours

before we were the land’s...”

the wind blows the old dream

across the face of despair,

the dream that was ours before

we were the dream’s,

some hollow melody

skips across the road we took

that led us to this precipice,

where we are still

at the edge of the woods

gazing up at the falling snow.



Intake Crib Lighthouse-1920

I want to be the man who lives

in the water intake on the lake.

It’s a fine, round, stone edifice

with a circular, steel roof.

It’s almost a hundred years old,

surrounded by water and sky.

I’d have to have a motor boat

to get groceries on Tuesdays.

Inside my house there is a hole

where water pours in forever,

a waterfall coils down in darkness

and knows no end to washing

the inner depths of my abode—

my history, my name, everything

a smooth and sleek pathway.

Everyone would know of the hermit

who lives in the circular stone house,

standing alone out on the lake.

His home provides water

for everyone to drink.

I want to be that man who lives,

Zebra mussels grow on his chin.



resuscitate

one day his mind will

falter. Memories will slip

thru frostbit fingers.

fatigue will grind the

gears, jam the gerunds into’

gorges of forget.

rough russet rots on

guts of a railroad, the rust

of machines at rest.





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