by Fitz | Aug 11, 2014 | Journal, Poetry
Black Pond is not as deep
as it is dark, dammed
some century ago
between ledges of granite
and an outcropping
of leaning fir, huckleberry,
and white pine.
For years I have paddled and trolled;
swam, fished, sailed and sometimes
simply tread water
in the night
trying to pierce
a dark, prickled sky.
Why is is that only now
have I made my way
towards the source,
through the tangles
of bulrush, loosestrife
and sawgrass hummocks,
to this place where
I am utterly lost
and happy
to finally be
as far as I can go?
~Windsor, New Hampshire
by Fitz | Aug 10, 2014 | Journal, Poetry
Last night the August supermoon
reminded me of the fickleness
of time and how
substance becomes shadow
and memories begin
to etch themselves
immutably
into the hardness
of what is
already lost.
by Fitz | Aug 8, 2014 | Journal, Poetry
It’s not like a poem
to come curl by my feet
on this morning too beautiful
to describe,
though I am looking
and listening
and waiting:
A rooster crows
above the low hum
of morning traffic;
the trash truck
spills air from brakes
and rattles empties into bins;
my neighbor hammers
his endless projects
with meticulous efficiency,
so I try to do the same:
Slowly sipping coffee
from an old mug
with a broken handle
I cast a trusted lure
into a familiar hole
and pull these few drops
of dark, still waters
into my boat.
by Fitz | Aug 8, 2014 | Journal, Poetry
Somewhere locked
in this choke of weeds
spread like a mangy carpet
is the hardened vine
of Pipo’s Concord Grape
he planted in an eager spring
three years ago.
Gasping for air and sun and water
perhaps it has found some way
to hide from my flailing hoe
and the bitterness of my neglect.
Maybe it has buried itself
below the transient roots
of witch grass, sow thistle,
and cockleburr
and can only wait
for another spring
bursting forth
from fresher ground.
by Fitz | Aug 8, 2014 | Essays, Journal, Teaching
My life is the poem I could have writ,
But I could not both live and utter it
~Henry David Thoreau
The common man goes to an orchard to taste the fruit. The rich man man learns how to plant his own orchard. The poet, however, grows an even better fruit and gives it all away; for in its perfection no person could afford to buy these apples that never bruise or fall or wilt in the heat. It is an apple that gives more than sustenance—it is an apple that gives life itself. For the true poet, his or her life is the vessel of humanity, and in their words they carry the collective dreams, haunts, wonderings, visions, and perceptions that lifts any who read or hear out of the muck of existence and into a more transcendent experience—an uncommon experience of common life.
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