My Father's Shirts

My father is forever fixed
in my mind as a man twice
my height, with his gin card
up his sleeve and can of
turtle wax in his hand.
I never thought of my dad
as a giant, but he always
felt large – even now,
when I can look him in
the eye when we hug
goodbye; even now,
when his hair is thinning
and his blood pressure
is high; even now,
when I close my eyes
I look up to him.

So it comes as a surprise
that I have been wearing
his shirts to work for the
last three days. The collars
are crisp in a way that mine
never are, and the pockets
are filled with crossword
puzzle answers, but I
manage to fill out the
chest all right and
the sleeves seem to be
just the right length.
The shirts fit fine,
but I still feel so small.

How is it possible
that I have grown
into his shirts
without growing
into a man?

Icarus Again

(A Nonettenon Poem)

It’s all downhill from here, and I’m not
talking about skiing either.
I’m not talking about how
you soar like an eagle
or feel free as the
wind or all that
other junk
poets
like
to
blather
about. I’m
talking about
letting go, total
freefall, panic in your
belly and fire in your eyes:
the moment when you’re about to
quit but decide to sprout wings instead.

Photography Lessons

You could, of course, take a portrait:
everyone on the cabin porch,
stiff and uncomfortable, smiles forced.
If the angle’s wide enough, you’ll
capture the backdrop: trees about
to bloom, jay bird waiting for crumbs.

Or you could try a landscape:
flat wall of flat gray clouds.
When you show it to your friends,
be sure to describe the obscured
valley – hills rolling into forever,
snow capped and serene.

When night falls, open your
aperture wide as the hillside
and capture the moon as she rises.
Leave the shutter open all night
as the clouds swallow up the
moon and release her.

If you’re a minimalist, shoot
for the tiny details: snow piled
three inches high on the picnic
table, flapjacks stacked even
higher. Be sure to capture
the glint of sun against ice.

But if you must capture the
trip with a single frame: take
a picture of a sleeping bag.
Focus on the small lump at the
foot, which just might be the
curled figure of a hibernating child.

Watching the Snow Fall at Night

I tried to calculate the calculus
of each individual snowflake,
to discover the magical
mathematical formula that
determines the meandering
path from cloud to earth.

I figure
that x equals
the length of the sky
times
the depth of your eyes
times
the width of our horizon,
divided by
infinity.



LL "Stubb" Stewart State Park

Such Shyness

Such shyness
is really a shade
of selfishness.

To either mask
your gifts in
false modesty
or hide your
frailty from
friends in fear

is to keep
the best of
yourself
away from us.

To My Daughter's Boyfriend, Ten Years From Now

I promise not to come between you;
I’ll build no walls, intercept no phone calls.
I’ll not play Capulet to your Romeo.

But in return, you must promise me this:

You must remember walking through the woods,
eyes sharp, looking for deer, for stones, for treasure.
You must remember how fragile the world felt,

each step cracking a twig, each sound sharp
and dangerous. You were still that day, gentle.
You must be that gentle with my daughter.

And you must remember the joy of playing
football in the living room, the crash of shoulder
into furniture and floor. You must remember

the humbling roar of a million imaginary fans,
the electric thrill of breaking Mom’s rules.
You must give that joy to my daughter.

And remember the good luck stone you carried
in your pocket until you outgrew good luck.
You told everyone it was quartz, even though

you knew it was a diamond. You held it to the sun
once and saw a shooting star. You must carry
my daughter just that closely to your heart.

If you want to love my daughter, young man,
you must remember how to be a boy.

haiku for icarus

let me lay seven-
teen syllables on your arms
like falcon’s feathers

let me teach you to
capture the light of flight in
the weight of your bones

let me plug your ears
with verse; let me sing of
heroes who disobeyed:

fear not the sun, whose
thin, dry fire can never melt
the glory of hope

Looking Up

i’ve been scrounging
for a decent idea all day,
looking in the corners
of forlorn drawers,
under the mugs on
the upper cupboard shelves.

i’ve rooted through
cluttered closets
without success
and troubled the
monsters under
the bed. bad idea.

nothing but lint
in my pockets,
nothing but gum
on the soles
of my shoes,
scuffing the
sidewalk
as i search
for a
decent
idea.