Quartet Near a Bend in Time

"It doesn't appear that the writer was thinking of eternity, but of events about to take place without interruption."


1. That Last Echo Is Always Off-Key

Now is the time
All things descend:
A simple claim,
Easily penned,

Impossible
To comprehend.
I'm fine with words.
I can pretend

They mean a truth
That I intend,
But I don't know
Where meanings end

And time begins.
Quick minds can spend
Lives lost chasing
That begin again.

2. Transcendentistry

"Another save. It outlasted him."

Maxine Kumin,
The first person
I ever met
Who earned her keep

Through poetry,
The first teacher
Of poetry
To consider

A poem I wrote
To improve it,
Herself wrote poems
About dentists

Who died before
They could convince
Her to repair
Her failing teeth.

3. Skylight

Who can ever
Name all the things
Moving at once
In this moment?

Whose words could frame
One pearl-dark sky
This skylight frames
When branches glow?

Trust the reader,
Is one reply.
Let everyone
Keep their own world.

Silly writer.
Tricks are for words.
The game is not
To be a game.

4. Noneness

Every moment
Overwhelms me,
Rinses and drowns
Me in noneness,

That weird no thing
That is all things
All happening
At one gone time.

I went swimming
In the cold lake.
Once and again,
The waves carried

Me back to shore
Before I knew
I had gone through,
Around the bend.