2 previously posted poems

The Grove Where Stars Fall

 

This night there is a star that falls and fades

I saw it cross the sky and blacken out

As though the night reached patiently a palm

and moved it smoothly with a steady arm

Perhaps there is a grove where stars are set

A secret, hidden ground bound firmament

And all about this field the stars are sprawled

Each with a brilliant story of his fall.

I could now say that we are much the same

The vibrant beauty of our crossing paths

Our silhouettes embracing in the sky

The burst, the fading, landing in a place

Where different shadows rush to tell their tale

And you and I, no longer you and I.

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The Hammock of Summer

 

When I look up from the hammock of summer

I see a bronze spider swing the trapeze of an eave

Nothing is written in the web but the unheard cry

of a plaintive house fly

The trees lean across the roof in knotted seams

The geese give the first call of endings

If I swing myself into the sky

I can watch the blue butterflies, float smoothly

to unknown destinations

When I look over the hammock's edge

I see a woman in a well of flowers

Just yesterday she blew dandelions

and cut the soft bloom of roses

Now she is falling and her fingertips

stroke the garden wall of her descent

Her face is as shy as violets

She is vivid with geraniums and a yellow mum

she wears in her hair precariously

In her rainbow of leavings, the flow of her

is an unhurried free fall

She holds the secret petals that have fallen

all through the summer days

Autumn lingers like a peacock offstage.