RipRap

king Wen

late afternoon
bright sun strong wind
I'm thinking of King Wen
and the Duke of Chou
writing down

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and dreaming
of an afternoon
after the hail fell
from dark charcoal

and bright sun before night
fell from

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Interlakin'

wind down through finger lakes

skate the north rim of Conesus

rattle through old little towns

then past broken

houses and rough fields

lined with trees that hold

hunting

  blinds

where drunk each year

somebody shoots

wild knocking out glass

 

open roofed auto

the slap of the flapping nylon

blue straps holding the seventeen

foot fiberglass flat water kayak

 

pull onto the dirt road where

a sign says “boat launch”

and tires find troughs

and pot holes

 

slow to a crawl

get down close to

water

that ripples only

when the red bow slides

 

gleaming into empty Hemlock lake

and the black graphite paddle

grips on the back-stroke

the waist rotates

two hundred pounds with

barely a twist

 

silent

 

only stone cliffs

small conifers

 echoes of ducks

and paddle drip ringlets

 on surface

of the morning sky

Torn Down Canandaigua

The muddy ruts of the cornfield already cut, mashed and ploughed under, with occasional stalks amputated at the knee.

An old wreck of a house (now a shack) with a sag-gut front porch and the roof about to collapse. All shades of grey in the patched tar-shingle walls falling into the crumbling morning.

Rounding the bend, sun tumbles through fall leaves of maples turning into mid-october north-east-colors and lands on tufts of scrub-grass in a pasture with black&white/brown&white cows lounging and lazy. One stands hunched, muscles taut, pissing gallons into the golden universe.

Chimney Bluffs (from Lake Hymns)

 

 

Spires

Piles of sand

stacked layers stand in isolation

lone

whispering

cut from the cliff-side

 

fourteen thousand year old silt

stones, shells, clumped where receding glaciers

glass like slabs, slow as age

sculpted these shores

dumped heaves of scrap

then melted and fed these lakes

with full teats

 

wind, a tide

in it’s own right

warmed and cooled turbulence

sweeps down across

soft

Ontario

and in throws

bites

the cleft of this shore

while

Ontario

laps quietly

Enter (from Lake Hymns)

(in silence)
welcome

glide          weightless
on glass

pass through these waters

moments
.......

Irondequoit Paddle (Part 1)

For the first time this year I head out in the kayak. It’s a red fiberglass seventeen foot sea kayak. A “Labrador Sea” made by Swift. I bought it at the end of the season the year before last getting 25% off because it was a demo model.

I slide into the seat, steadying the craft with the paddle bridging from the back of the seat to the dock. Immediately I can feel my weight buoyed by the bottom of the kayak and the water of the bay.

Dipping the paddle in I give it a pull. Muscle memory kicks in and in moments I am gliding past reeds on the flat part of Irondequoit Bay, heading up stream towards the mouth of the creek rather than out into the main part of the bay.

 

red-winged-blackbird

swoop-cuts across my bow

too close to her nest

 

The morning is warm and it doesn’t take long to break a sweat but there is a breeze that cools you off if you stay out in the open. The sounds of traffic become more distant as I get out of sight of the dock and the Empire Boulevard bridge. I work my way across the broad flats and into one of the channels between the reeds. I pick the west branch which gives me a little more time in the marsh before heading southward and up into the main part of the creek that looses the marsh feel and becomes more wooded and hilly.

 

cat-tails rustle

at the back end of the cove

two swans

Drizzle

All week the sun has warmed me through the moon roof as I drove to work each morning.  Today, Saturday I wake to gray sky and sloshing grass. I walk around the house with my coffee, drinking from under my hood.

 

little bits

float in gutter trickle

April rain

Postmodern latenight

This brown glass
hand held and wrapped
two fingers round the neck
flow down throat
empty
gurgle
cowboy
junkies crawling
over the hardwood floor

Samsara

      Swerve of a car
simple as rain
little Nicole gone


For Nicole, my cousine's grandchild,  who died yesterday in a car crash in Florida. Only four years old.

Good Morning

Seven Fifteen on Saturday morning I peer through half closed lids out the window. She stirs. We fit like this now. I turn, she turns. An arm extends and the other scratches. We hum a little "My Girl" with closed morning-lips.

smoke drifts
from snow capped chimney
orange clouds     purple