poems | Ray Waddle

WRITING HOME

The old never-remarked sky sweeps clear

its cloud harbor of galleon fleets

across its oceanic civilization of wind.

Decades it’s been since I noticed anything

like this, this steady blue unbudging above,

its shocking lack of commentary.

Days after, when I turned to write home,

it was high time I said what it was to see and feel

from this low lookout onto sky-borne sea,

my patchwork bureau, this piece of earth,

high time to tell everyone outright the news

and get off a dispatch without delay,

holding back nothing this time.

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SPRING FORWARD FALL BACK

Earth clears its field, stripped wet and raw,

and I can finally hear what it’s hearing:

engines oily searing the asphalt everywhere,

the circling hawk’s spiraling claw,

the football clatter in my brain.

September’s festive barge floated away,

bronze October set sail,

now November’s gray glory docks into its pier.

====

I took a slow walk this morning,

bent low, alarming the neighbors,

but I was merely examining evidence:

Sometime last night November

picked up an hour and took a fall,

stumbling backward.

A bruised memory rides the air

where the extra hour used to be.

====

Shaking off trauma and deficit,

the 11th month steps out now

in silver leafless light,

extending a damp open palm to greet

the winded year, its winding down,

and seeing me motions me over,

saying take my hand,

stand out here a while with me.

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DUET

The sky’s what’s there till we see God –

protector, infinity at hand, no contest.

An itch to argue says it doesn’t exist, the sky:

it’s just a fancy scatter of sunlight, a blues figment,

a cobalt smear of atmosphere. Talk all you want:

the sky outlasts the circus act of reason.

Meeting sky somewhere there is prayer:

they fuse and fuel, position, torch, expand.

I thank God the sky is no metaphor –

towering it bears down, inconceivably,

what’s there till we see God.