Mimir

The egotism of my certain soul
Assures me I in some way am remembered
Perhaps in but the part and not the whole
My year of self audaciously Novembered
But some of me--enough to be quite sure
That if I tap a shoulder and say hi
The object of my greeting won't demur
Objecting to my claimed acquaintance. Why?
Because I blithely claim a certain place
Within the world, and this in memory
Naively certain time will not erase
The record of my presence. Yet, surely
I am no more than any other who
Might be forgotten. So must I be too.

Delta

In flying cross the country I
Did not achieve what I set out
To do; instead I wandered by
And back and forth. I do not doubt
That those who did this to me did
Not mean to do it, or intend
To harm my soul or flip my lid
And still they did so by the end.
In flying back where I began
Though not where I began at all
I saw a melancholy man
In one half-glimpse across the hall
Only to know, upon reflection
It merely mirrored my dejection.

Leavening Agency

There is a certain irony
In how Pesach is often done
That makes a brittle mockery
Of when our people had to run.
They seized the moment, so it's said,
To flee with what they had at hand:
A yet unrisen load of bread
Whose yeast had not had time to stand.
To celebrate this blessed flight
We now refrain from yeast and flour
But to replace, and make doughs light,
Sit beating eggs for hour on hour
Which, had they had the time to do,
I think the bread had risen too.

Delay

Airport time is not real time at all
Suspended as we are, clocks do not strike
The sands float in the glass and do not fall.
As in the moment between hut and hike
We start but falsely, circling our hands
In futile hope of someday moving on
But til the plane that we all wait for lands
Reality around us is all gone.
We while the hours away secure and bored
Pretending an excitement no one feels
To fly, as if the very airport soared.
But here instead we sit, cooling our heels
Waiting for who knows, unmoved and drear,
Unaging, uneventful, and yet here.

Stella

I watch the snow float down upon the world
Inexorable, unstoppable--but slow--
And joy that I at least am firmly curled
About a mug of tea to watch it so.
Not for me the struggle through the drifts
The eerie skid of tires on the ice
Instead the silent snowfall brightly lifts
My spirits, and I think the vista... nice.
My privilege provides me with that choice
(To glance upon the snow but not go out)
And I must own that it has been abused.
For my appreciation gives no voice
To those by whom it cannot be refused
Who drown in white, and cannot go without.

On Me

My heart cannot achieve my mind's desires
Because it counsels (oh pernicious mind)
A calming patience that would bank the fires
Of love's frustration. If I could but find
A way to make my heart at last resigned
To know she will return, perhaps I could
In humble patience sit here unrepined.
But no; though I assure myself it would
Be good for nothing but my own self-good
I cannot sit here without fidgeting
In my annoyance that my lover should
Be anywhere but here. Soon she will wing
Her swift way back; but never swift enough
To stop my heart from grumping in a huff.

Schroedinger

What am I when she is not here? Who knows?
Like cats tortured by scientists I lie
Defined by what an observation shows
But unobserved. And thus I live and die
At once, forever tangled in myself.
The time may move, the clock may tick along
But it is hidden on the cluttered shelf
And I can only guess the hour wrong
Until she's come again. I cannot tell
The chimes of midnight from the luncheon bell
The Geiger counter from the microwave
The muted TV from the silent grave
Until she can return, and see, and make
The quantum sleeper in my soul awake.

Iron

Western New York is pretty nowadays
If you should happen to be fortunate.
Last week's snow is but a shining glaze
On which the sunbeams in their glory sit.
The snow that falls is not a heavy load
The people here are not at all put out
It barely lies at all upon the road
The day's commute is not in any doubt
But walk a mile away and look again
Gaze at the distant treetops if you can
For they are hidden from the sight of men
By lake effect, that in an hour began
And by the hour it leaves us will put down
Several feet of snow. Also the town.

1/28

There were some things I thought we all believed
Like "send those homeless, tempest-tost, to me"
Or just "America, land of the free."
But now I find that I have been deceived.
The wanderer, the lost, the refugee
Cannot rely on us; are not reprieved
But made to suffer once again. Are we
Afraid of those we already received?
If so, then let us all depart once more;
For who among us, though ourselves born here
Descends from those who never immigrated?
We all passed through the open golden door.
Where would we be if we had then been hated--
Blocked by an unthought and illegal fear?

Advent

The Christmas music on the radio
Used to annoy me. Frankly, it still does.
But overlaid upon it is the glow
Of thinking about you. The little buzz
Of sharp annoyance that I used to feel
Is now transmuted into just a sigh
That mixes into it the very real
Discovery that when I hear it I
Am, by its mere existence, turned to you.
I cannot help but in that moment see
That you, and every little thing you do,
Are more important, more alive to me
Than that which used to make me ill at ease
And thus the music finds a way to please.