LIGHT SHINING ON COPPER
I can mostly buy
the whole spiritual thing
that she is neither dead nor gone
or at a perfect time
and to a perfect place
But there is
this hole in a hug
where she used to fit
In memory of Copper Love 1947 – 2017
www.copperlove.com
ATHABASCA
Along the Icefields Parkway
(prettiest road in the world)
winding from Lake Louise to Jasper
lies a glacier that feeds three oceans
(Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic)
It takes a hundred years for a snowflake
falling on the top to make it to the bottom
Before a snowflake that falls today
finishes its journey the glacier may be gone
On the other side of the road in spring
water falls down a long face of rock
They call it the weeping wall
it may still be there
MISSING LEONARD
Leonard Cohen is gone
He doesn’t call, he doesn’t write
Huddle with me now
round the poem and the song and listen for the breadcrumb and the hint of old perfume
that speak
of other ways to God
than Jesus and the goddess
FAMILY TREE
My father took the roots into the ground
And the tree of my mother
began to fall
And oxygen hose tethered her some
a forest of family and friends
slowed the fall
She tore off some leaves
as she fell
GONE IS GONE
A just war, an unjust war, or just war
A midnight arm, flung
across an unmade bed
Half empty or half full
IN MEMORY STILL
(or computers byte)
You keep popping up in my memory
On old disks I find love notes
still as loving as when they were entered
Faxes, letters, poems, thoughts
full of beauty full of trust
Valentine’s poems, three of them
overflowing with sensual exaltation
wisdom exchanged, depths plumbed,
promises made
Fresh and clean and bright
as the day they were written
lines that would go on forever
lines that still do go on forever
I don’t know how to tell the little ones
and zeros that we’re now apart
it might break their heart
KENDRA
When the natives of this land
suffered a death such as this
they knew how to grieve
They felt it to the depths of their being
and cut deep into their arms and legs
that they might reach deeper
Today my great friends
I reach and bleed with you
Written for my cousin Kenny and his wife Betty on the tragic loss of their eighteen year old daughter
AUNT EILEEN
(1912 – 2000)
The death of my aunt
came when I had been at the sea
and my pores were open
She entered quickly
Dragging shadows of other deaths
aunts, uncles, father, friends
All loud with the clanking
of the chains that still bind
KURT
I am sure that the life
of my dear friend’s brother
held great meaning for a great many
He will be missed
My poems will miss him
He would take them down
into the greatness of his being
wrap them in music and meaning
and sing them back out to the world
I am sure that Kurt touched many people
in ways they have not been touched before
nor will ever be again
My poems join in the mourning
for that touch
THOUGHTS
ON
A DEBBIE MOMENT
Debbie, a great friend of mine, died too young
and in too much pain in Houston about five
years ago now
This moment just sneaked up on me
earlier this year
Can’t help wondering how many people
are having Debbie moments now in New
York and around the world from what
happened just six weeks ago
How many people in the world in the last
five years having Debbie moments from
a hole blown in their sky