The more the words, the less the meaning, and how does that profit anyone?

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Some we know more of than ourselves
for we have held them,
measuring the space of their life in a breath.

Some we know only of:
A distant glowing city may be spotted by its smoke,
like exhaling winter onto a pane of lighted glass.

Your body is a warm furnace seen through a window.

Monday, March 3, 2008

I suppose deep down I hope,
One day, to have Garrison Keillor read a poem
I have written for my father, only when
He and I have had time to really hash it out
after he is dead: I will write
With sadness a verse about that winter you waged war
With the thick ice
The plow could not scrape up, and how I would find you
in the corner of the driveway, dutifully spreading salt
As if scattering ashes.