Poetry: April Challenge, 6 Poems

I'm currently in the middle of a 30 days / 30 poems challenge and, although I won't post all the poems because not all are worth it, I feel I'm doing alright for the first week or so. These are all rough - close to first drafts, but that's why I would love your feedback. Yes, you. You who love my poetry and you who do not. You who think you are good at critiquing and you who say you know nothing. I learn nothing from silence, but even a few words may give me inspiration. If there are particular lines of a poem that you like, let me know.

P.S. These poems are not necessarily in the order that I have written them.

Night Gives Way To Dawn

Day gives way to dusk.
The sun like a hero
in the time of heroes
departs for a distant country,
unable to be everywhere
at once. Gone are the hours
of selfless work,
the lucid conversations,
the watchful eyes.

Often I am found
sleeping like a star
in the time of stars,
unseen and silent
behind a cloud of dreams.
The eyes of the dark open:
orange street-lamps,
staggered footsteps,
and singing shadows.

Tonight, I am likewise
restless, a specter
in a time of specters,
roaming dangerous streets
looking for a new fire.
Who will save us now?
We are eager like birds
singing at the glow of windows
or a deer imagining in the headlights
a sudden miraculous dawn.

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A Love of Repetition

I must tell you
from one reader to another:
read and re-read.

If a book is a friend,
let her speak more than once;
let your conversation be deep
as once mine was driving home
with a man many years older.

I learned of the past.
There was no silence
between us for hours.

If a book is a companion,
let her words pass into remembrance
so that, each time you touch her
and read, you are familiar
with the sound of your lips moving.

Every repetition reveals
mysteries beneath the surface
I hadn’t seen before.

If a book is to be more
than a fling in a bookstore
keep coming back to her;
you will find her changed,
or yourself, suddenly new.

I spoke with the past
when I read my father’s biography.
How can I not relive it?

If a book is an escort,
let her lead you time and again
through the black passages of time
until the way is written
on your palm and on your heart.

Re-read these words, my friend,
there is something
I must tell you.

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Repair

A morning so quiet
the birds have left you for food
and twigs for their nests,
and you are missing people:
your mother, a love, yourself.

You can’t remember
when you last had time to breath
spring air and cedar
from the broad bench where you sit,
your car close by on the drive.

Who are you like this,
powerless to drive or break,
at home with free time?
The car sits there like a dog
begging from a store window.

A friend is coming
and in minutes you try hard
to not impede him,
to bring fresh water and ice
on command or without it.

It’s easier that way
to excuse your discomfort
at lacking the tools
to achieve independence,
to not be alone and weak.

If you knew something
of repair or maintenance,
you would stay alone
this morning of all mornings,
excused in going nowhere.

If there were no roar
of a gear-filled life revving,
you would love silence,
but it is the car being fixed,
and you, on the bench, watching.

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Odyssey

“How great is the darkness in which we grope” - William James

There is always another night,
sudden
and confused by darkness.

You awake forgetful:
what is this bed?
this tangled blanket?

Where is the world behind you
in your dream,
still yanking at your hair.

You wrestle
with shadows
and escape one sheet at a time.

The floor rises to meet you:
hardwood, socks,
your grandmother’s carpet,

and even then you believe
it must be close to dawn,
not 3 a.m.,

your moment, irrational,
your dream, a continuous lie.

-----------------------------------

Later

When you said the greatest secrets are hidden
in the most unlikely places,

I heard behind your words a cardinal’s song
wrapped in the leaves of a maple.

I discovered a quarter on the way home,
face down on the road like a man

whose foot has snagged an unseen branch,
another secret, I suppose.

I lifted the couch, the cabinet, the awkward shelves
and found dust balls fleeing my hands.

I have niches to clean; I understand that secret.
But a lost coin is nothing, isn’t it?

And the bird, I have not heard nor seen her since,
nor you, my friend, nor you.

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Late Summer, White Blossoms

My brother and I were trowels
uprooting dandelions, sorrel, and clovers
in the garden, where we would listen in silence
to the radio between us.

I don’t know the words
we could have said, dirt on our hands,
smudges decorating our blue jeans and noses,
but it had the semblance of togetherness.

Our pet mouse toiled with us,
nibbling leaves, scratching at the ground,
crawling on our shoulders, down our arms.

There were days she would work without us,
unearthing seeds and nesting others,
until a black dog caught her.

We were too late to save her,
though we were near, shifting our way across
the rows of white chrysanthemums.

I don’t remember where we buried her,
but there were many words
left planted inside us like broken seeds.

The garden was a summer in blossom
and a graveyard of petals,
beds enough for marigolds, foxgloves,
and tiger lilies dead-headed daily.