To a hospital bed now confined
By a horseback fall seemingly doomed to lay
Only someday, to walk on crutches
Hardly wanting to see the day.
He says, " Only one thing will cheer me up:
A baseball signed by the Babe will!"
From the whole Yankees team with names combined
Comes the dedication for all to see
For on the ball he clutches
The Babe has underlined
"I’ll knock a homer for you in Wednesday’s game"
So that by the radio on the table
Sits a boy once doomed to be lame
But sure enough the Babe knocks one out
(These things happen when Babe is about)
For the boy: fate will soon make him well
With a singular ball, and a tale to tell.

The soldiers march 21 steps
Pause 21 seconds
Death is not the final reckoning
The Unknowns' glory is beckoning
From stoney depths
Found in his loss
He cannot be freed of battles' cross.

His guardians lead most exemplary lives
No alcohol passes their lips
Pure is the essence they are sipping
Into cussing and useless argument they are never slipping
From good conscience only, they strive
To live without honor's loss
Never from their duties' roster their names out-cross't.

Those whose burial heard 21 guns
These names have they memorized
The honor of these soldiers realizing
Their nation's finest memorializing
As they, and those they guard are goodly sons
To bear their nation's triumphs' loss
As did all American heroes
Buried beneath six-pointed star, crescent , or cross.

Glowing

As in the eye of an insect
Large as a whale
The formation of humankind
Is huge before the tale of the tiny
Grand in the scheme of today & tomorrow
The human organism lives.

I bleed the words from myself
Hard as the surface beneath pen & paper
I am alone within the shell of my skin
One giant piece of joy
As green as the green moss
Over the earth
The gel of life singing
The dark bursting
Into the light, born
Again a mountain of beings
Decorated with love :
A glowing conception !

Snowball flowers in Summer

No snow but rows of baby corn
"I learned how to live on a little piece of land
When I was a boy
I had rats in the walls at one house
Then a pet rat named Snuffles at another.'

Heaven is when the birds eat out of your hand
Heaven is here on earth
Heaven is the lamb that eats grass and bleats.

Life is a pile of conjectures
A moment in the sun
A million years of brightly colored flowers
A cartload of hay and a lot of fun !

The Butterfly skirts the Japanese pine tree

An insect perches on my seat
I sit amidst a landscaped life so free
Today it seems I have everything bad beat.

I pause midst fragrant summer trees
Whilst sweet flower scent plays upon the breeze
The joyous cries of children rise in the street

Our Garden

The ribald Viking
The contemplative Buddha
On the wild cat's grave the birds sing
Elsewhere, sun blazes off the ice of the Tundra

In Summer that cat died in the house
This is the wild, and the passive for it's spouse
Intertwining to form a world
Of natural prosperity, final death, & the flag of joy unfurled

The fall of mankind
Looms underlined
We lean over a bluff
But this we have
Is like a salve
Right now is enough,
after all

Many-fingered Chrysanthemum
Starburst of white lightening
Petals like tentacle limbs
Bright hands reaching out
The pink Carnation's petals have shrunk
Were removed yesterday from
The florist's white water-wedded foam
Deep violet Iris bloom still reaches
Like the triple-budded lavender Hyacinths
About to blossom in the garden outside.

Now the cut flowers' shining wings reveal
Their slowly shriveling
Death of days past
Yet bring me steady love
And life in a world diced,
Disjointed and bleeding all about me.

As in the eye of an insect
Large as a wail
The formation of humankind
Is huge before the tale of the tiny
Grand in the scheme of today & tomorrow
The human organism lives.

I bleed the words from myself
Hard as the surface between pen & paper
I am alone within the shell of my skin
One giant piece of joy
As green as the grand moss
Over the earth the gel of life singing
The dark bursting
Into the light born
Again a mountain of beings
Decorated with love
A glowing conception.

that cold summers night
moved away from the "dune party"
noisy kinds throwing beer cans
I moved away from their wretching
to the crest of 'Blueberry Hill'

There slept in my wool Plaid
lined black cape Like a tent
yet exposed to all the elements of life
alone with the sky
And the eternal call
of that wild place & TIME.....

Great Bright Explosion

like liquid garments
floating free
in an indeterminate place
that is me
that is all
that exists
nothing is all that is real
my hour is come
here I am, Death
naked in time
swimming before your eyes
in the milk of my life
suspended and free
in the space of this hour
the song of this minute
the voice of this moment
IS, my jewel.