At the end of the longest day, I always end up in Roethke.

"I fear for my own joy;
I fear myself in the field,
For I would drown in fire.

Father, I'm far from home
And I have gone nowhere." -Excerpt from "Love's Progress"

Little Poem After A Deep Sleep

I’ve wasted many a starry dandelion eyelash waiting
Among the ripe abundance of summer, but now
Fall approaches with necessary cruelty, and I stop
To observe the last breaths of things, to take stock
Of what remains in the pantry, its meager tangibility.

Homesickness, or: A Slightly Less Tragic Variation on Donald Hall’s “Without”

I scrape myself into the corners of this place
Like the sighing black bear surrendering itself to its cave:
A cyclical empty necessary waiting room
I cannot breathe in without
Hills rising and falling and cradling
My home without storm symphonies or bird bands no
Horizons no blushing forests no polite coyotes no
Scent of wet fire curling down my throat reclining from
No beds of damp sweet leaves just

Glass gravel garbage ground
Into flat defeated grass without
Clover without rabbits without apple
Trees without water songs dripping after rain I am
Drowning without tomatoes pressing wine onto my tongue and
Blind without the sun in the morning
And the afternoon
And the evening and

No light no wingspans no thaw unbearable
Nomadic homeless monsters screaming
Smashed moonlight huddled into clogged gutters
No cinnamon no cattails no chicoree creeping
Sky blue against the willful river no fog rising
Away from the clouded quartz surface at dawn no
Frozen silence fragile as glass

This winter without mercy an imprisonment this hole
No seasons no sleeping no sound the wind it suffers
Without snow without sediment without space
Between my fingertips I longed for a garden wilted
Without thistle without milk without amen
Without warmth without footprints without nests