Ages ago I kept a diary in a hand legible to
none but me. I read it on my knees as just-fallen
rain clings to pinecones like wet feathers,
the evening slips into its velvet gown,
and starlight pitter-patters on my head
like drops of gallium. I am thankful
the day is dying, for I have forgotten how
to live. Who wrote these words belongs
to an empire that collapsed under its
own grandiose weight, its high priest
sifting for relics imbued with magic,
finding only lamps that will not light.
I was seventeen when I read Alan Watts’ The Way of Zen
a couple pages at a time, putting down the book to observe
sunset drape itself over my mind, falling asleep thinking
of not thinking, hearing a flock of birds and imagining myself
flapping against the sky and recalling that I am sky. Once,
the book well-thumbed and creased and read twice over,
I felt an ant crawl the length of my arm like a nagging
sense that
I am a foul weather friend, dear poetry.
I have paid you no mind when spring rains
wash clean the marble statues of gods
and a cheery sun
reads aloud your sweet inscriptions,
nor when awed children skip through museums,
nor accordion-song fills the subway,
nor a stranger does another stranger
a kindness,
nor blueberries are so ripe they bleed sugar,
nor velvet chocolate cake knocks you dizzy with love,
nor, after making love, my wife’s perfume
clings
There in the back of the closet
of the room that was once my room
and is now a museum to childhood
is a photo, slightly curled with age,
of ten scrawny kids in awkward poses,
baseball gloves stretched out as if
to catch a ball just out of view;
and there in left field am I, shielding
the sun with my glove, tracking
the fly ball, an ice cream truck playing
its melodies, metal bats ringing on
nearby fields,
