OCCASIONAL NEW POEMS

Bracken

Golden gold, gold golden, golden gold golden.

We lay down our carved gold on the hillside.

We lay down our gold fronds.

We lay down our stems, some still green

as if we are in our first green life.

But we are in our second life which is carved gold,

rose-gold, gold scrolls and curlicues,

old gold croziers

laid out upon the hillside.                                                                

In October we are in our next life of engraved gold.

We have set aside our noble bearing,

our old upright royalty.

Then, all we had to do was strive fiercely

for the whole hillside was within our grasp.

We have forgotten the wet woods we crept up out of.

(Long ago we stepped out of that old wet dark.)

We have laid aside our high detailed architecture,

our identical leaf stencils,

our stiff imperious columns that no one could ever snap

to lie down quietly in our last gold life,

here on the warm soft brown earth.

 Tawny

A little bit heartbroken in the woods –

one half of a pair flying around among the old shadows,

calling to whom it may concern.

Not a song but a cry forlorn as the old shadows

or as the voice of a lost boy

counting trees to find the way home.

Home is not the woods and is not the brown fields

lost outside in the dusk.

It is not the dark and not the dawn.

Home is not the broken heart in the woods,

calling, calling among the shadows to whom it may concern.

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