Iowa Summer

The sunlight dapples through my windowpane

To where the dog, anticipating, lies

Sprawled out upon a cushion twice her size

Tongue lolling. I hear a distant train

And, closer, neighbor children, whose campaign

To lure my dog outside meets its demise

With sunny weather, but who advertise

Their presence anyway. I can't complain.

The summer is an idyll in the year

When everyone is happy to be out

And laziness is just normality.

So, like my dog, I'm happy to be here

Listening to children play and shout

While lounging in my immobility.

Rot

I cannot feel the whole of my left leg

And I may never feel it all again.

It didn't crack at once--not like an egg--

But slowly slipped away. The time was when

I had two working legs, and then it wasn't.

I cannot draw the line between them cleanly.

Sometimes the body works; sometimes it doesn't

And though I feel the latter all too keenly

Time won't go back. The slow deterioration

Is how I know I'm mortal. We all are.

This time on Earth is merely a vacation;

The time we aren't is always greater far.

We cram so much into that life, but still

Death and decay both win. They always will.

Alteration Finds

Should I approve

If all these changes

Or by remove

To distant ranges

Signal my

Objection to

The sudden cry

Of something new?

I might well flee

The altered state

But that I see

That if I wait

The change will grow

To status quo.

Thunderstorm Gothic

On days like this the night is never far

Although we wish it were. When night arrives

It is unleavened by a single star;

The moon has disappeared. The little knives

Of street lamps cut across the gloom, but break

Against the darkness. Sounds are magnified.

Even the animals appear to make

The sound decision, now, to run and hide.

No one opens any door. The rain

Somehow falls silently, or soft enough

To let the others through. The silent strain

Becomes unbearable. The air feels tough.

On days and nights like this I too stay in

Best not to let it touch me on the skin.

Whether

When people spend too long together

They often seem to rub apart

As when the prickle of the weather 

Implies a thunderstorm will start:

The very thunder of dissension

Is fortold by lightning eyes;

The tears that fall out of suspension

Heralded by windy sighs.

The heated blasts of angry words

Are followed by the hail of fists;

In each case cautious cattle herds

Predict the change by being missed.

And as the summer squall blows past

So too these arguments don't last.

A La

I've never had a gift for imitation

For writing like I think that others thought;

I'm simply not that good at observation

At working out the way a word was wrought.

Instead of teasing out the tangled knot

Of what I've read, I simply cut right through;

I analyze the way it was begot

But to read well is not a route to do.

I do not claim my writing is all new

As if I were untouched by prior knowledge;

But I must write my lines without a cue

Not even that which I now teach in college.

Thus though I must profess myself well-read

The words I write come from the heart instead.

Escape Artist

There have been days (there will be days) I plan

To run away and hide from everyone;

To make a new life under a new sun

And take a new name just because I can.

There was a time once when I almost ran:

When what was doing and what had been done

Became impossible; what I had begun

Had turned out nothing like when I began.

But since I stayed, and managed through the mess,

Since I found you, and joined your life with mine,

The plans I make are larger than before.

Now when I plan, I will not run unless

Your thoughts are folded into my design

And where I flee has room for one name more.

Philosophy

Love is a comfort, deep within the soul,

A promise that whatever trouble comes

The partnership of love will make it whole

Even if the world is torn to crumbs.

It is a sense, held trusting in the heart,

That one thing stands despite the maelstrom's rage:

That anything that might be torn apart

Can be repaired if love is let to age.

Love is the relaxation of the mind,

The peace that lies behind the everyday

That whispers, when the world has been unkind

There is a place beyond the world to stay.

Love does not doubt or trust: it needs them not,

But sits beyond the seat of conscious thought.

America

America is much misunderstood.

America is only an ideal.

America (like most things) is not real.

America is not a force for good.

America's a bombed-out neighborhood.

America's its own Achilles heel.

America has many wounds to heal;

America does little that it should.

America, my home, my native land;

America, of opportunity;

America, the settlers' demand:

America, from sea to shining sea.

America, so hard to understand;

America, harder, somehow, to be.

Humidity

The crushing air is warm and soft

And lures me down to sleep outside.

I cannot keep my head aloft;

My limbs lie low; I cannot hide

The way my eyelids droop. My skin

Feels tight, my hair all prickles,

The bugs that flit about begin

To chew on me--their eating tickles.

I hear the fireworks far out 

And wish that they were thunderous

The air is wet, the land a drought

So rainfall would be wonderous

But if I sleep and it should rain

I still believe I would complain.