Where the Ball Field Was

Now tall green half the year

And half the year in snow,

Il fait bien froid, bien froid,

Thoughts go for a slow stroll

Through all the young, wild firs,

Tall, hare-dug grass, and poems.

We have kept this with us,

Half of it in our lines,

Half of it in your skull,

The field that served to show

A point of how games work,

A show of how work goes.

Guess the years it will take

For the ball field to go,

All go, to be all woods.

Or guess how soon the space

Gets bought and cut and mowed

And dug to hold a house.

Both ways, one quick, one slow,

Will end the games for good.

And how long in your skull?

And how long in our lines?

Right now, the games are played

By ghosts. How long for ghosts?

Right now, the hares dig holes

And come out in safe hours,

Few for them. How long, then

For the hares and the ghosts,

Field lines in your skull, games,

Firs, grass, house, and for cold?

Don’t Wish, Sure

Lives crop up non-stop,
And lives stop, non-stop.
Who can know for sure
If right now there’s less
Or more, more or less?

Take it as it comes;
Be it as it goes.
There’s no choice in choice.
You choose and you choose
What chose and chose you.

Life stops up and crops
Lives far and lives close.
You see how it goes
And feel when they go.
As far as that goes,

You are how it goes.
You might pry a shell
That’s been force-fed pearls.
You might pull whole books
From words stuck in you.

You wish it were less
And then wish for more.
It’s tough not to wish.
The stops come non-stop.
Life crops up a lot.

The Poem’s Side

These beasts have three sides,
One like deer or wolf,
An ape, a large cat,

Give or take, and one
Turned in, hid from light,
In their guts, which have

Each whole slews of bugs,
Each crew to its beast
And no two the same,

A mixed-bag of life,
Plus a third side, shared,
Like some of those bugs,

And, like the bugs, both
Hid in home beast and
A crew of its own,

Out in air as well,
But loud and large, fixed
In rocks, clay, or wires.

If you see one beast,
You meet all three, and
If one side fails, all

Sides die, though each will
Seek its own ways out—
Child, touch, sludge, sighs, poem.

Not if You Beg for It

Who goes out at night looks for death.

Go out at night

In bright street lights—

That’s how you look

For death. What feels

Safe, more or less.

Go out at night

Where dark’s still dark

But for the skies,

That’s how you risk

Mere scrapes and falls—

When you’re too wired

For each cracked twig,

For sounds of breath,

The way winds brush

Up your bare neck,

You can’t find death.