Greenland

sheets of ice

cascading to the sea,

plunging in the summer sun

like kids cannon-balling into the deep end.

global warming

spawning new islands and bays,

a lush new age of water,

green-house gases rising

in a great belch

from the man's

energy binge.

But what is the cause?

Hydrocarbons burning in roaring cars?

The unseen dead rising

into the innocent stratosphere?

Jungle trees are burning

as, wild-eyed, the panther

prowls the Amazon village

hungry for her own energy fix.

We could blame it all on Fulton and Watt:

their steam-punk monsters spitting fire,

as trudging workers descend

into the industrial-grade darkness

and the misery of the money hole.

But one bright student

suggested  a more somber cause

from which there is no escape

in cap and trade.

Gaia, walking with large swings,

slings up

volcanos and glaciers and men

while, deep in her brooding, iron core,

she shrugs,

and, most inconveniently,

takes her own sweet time

smiling

as she contemplates

her next move.

(20 Oct 2013)

The Poetry Lesson

I’ll turn off the classroom lights

and open the windows wide

so you can see.

Look deeply

as the sun shatters

our rainy world

into rainbows.

Feel how cold wind,

flooding through open doors,

drops to the darkened floor

your poems,

like seeds

piercing fertile soil -

can you hear it?

the steady whisper

of God?

(26 March 2011)

Seaward

Photograph: view Golden Gate Bridge from the galley of The Hawaiian Chieftain. S. Federle

"Grace does not destroy nature, but elevates it and consecrates it to God." Thomas Merton

Seaward waits, poised,
gently rising and falling,
by the concrete pier
ready for our cruise;
the polished bowsprite,
jutting in defiance,
fills my heart 
with an undefined dread.

Underway at last on the calm Sausalito channel
we strike sail, ropes winching
mainsail tight, foresail stretched
catching breezes pushing up
from the foggy Golden Gate

but I see only
watery desolation:
no familiar, solid road
no bright guiding line,
no golden prize
as we speed across
the dark, green desert.

The wind, no longer a breeze,
becomes a cold gale, flailing our faces,
making us hurry into windbreakers and hoods,
and when I turn my tingling cheeks
towards the shrouded city, suddenly
out far and in deep, I see

pelicans soaring and plunging to the kill,
ducks skimming low over like fighter squadrons,
and sea-lions spying on us at water level,
their dog-sly eyes following our every move.

Warfare fills this place
as species battle species, and
Darwin writes all the rules.

On this voyage of discovery
we are like school-children gaping in wonder
at colorful plastic buckets of bay water
revealing sea-worms, and spider-crabs,
preying on tiny krill delicately inching
over fronds of firm sea lettuce.

So the bay is not a desert;
life pours over it,
on it, and under it,
claiming at every level
of this moist, roiling world
its birthright,

and we are unwitting participants in this struggle
tossed high and low in our powerful, winged schooner,
gliding lightly, scooning swiftly on our voyage
through turbid, turbulent waters,
through the violent,
living bay.

(22 July 2010)

Seaward sailing under Golden Gate Bridge

Living Rosary

The children sit calmly

their complacent voices

monotone as a monk's chant.

They repeat the ancient words

recalling grace and courage

at the hour of death.

They really don't know

about the terror

and bliss of angelic visitation,

how a single greeting

can change everything

in a single moment dash

her young, pure heart

into the Judean dirt,

while her soul, enraptured,

soars high into the clear

desert sky. 

These are mysteries too deep

for their supple, green minds.

But I feel

in the rise and fall of their words,

her gentle acceptance

of the thrusting sword,

her transcendent smile

as the whip

tears across His tender skin,

the redemptive power of

all undeserved suffering.

These good children do as they're told

and behave well, reverently reciting

the millennial hope

on the bright gym floor,

in their school-day

morning prayer.

(1 May 2013)

The English Teacher

When I told them how Jim Crow
made prisons of
bathrooms, restaurants,
candy stores, schools

and how the school bus forced
colored kids into a ditch,
(too black to ride)
and justice finally failed
even Sunday school girls,

they looked askance,
narrowing their eyes
and asked how people
could be so unfair,

so I showed them.

Six million gone
with the careless wave
of the Kommandant’s baton,
and Anne, discovered and reduced
to words on a page.

Their eyes grew suddenly old and grave.

Now
asking them to write April poems,
I say,
look at the cold spring day…
wind blowing
through restless trees,
rain filling the land to
make it green,

but instead they sing dirges,
of children who murder,
and children who die.

So why should I be surprised ?
They did not make this world
and I cannot lie.

Author notes

(after reading Billy Collins’s poem, “The History Teacher”)