If you could only see past your own indifference
You would know the beauty of the ordinary
The joy of the mundane
The pleasure of the routine
If you could only broaden your horizons
You would know the depth of our shallowness
The magic of our mediocrity
The pull of our repulsion
If you could only sink to our level
You would fawn over the prosaic as we do
Adore the banal, and
Find significance in the jejune
Such a kind offer, but I must decline
I’ll be the rarest of the humble breed
Who arrogantly refuse to bow down
To your pedestrian gods
Choosing instead to fly
Past your commonplace heaven
To a Valhalla
Of those who think
While you preen and adorn your empty head
Warm (1987)
Hands intertwined like the briar and the rose
Of some old English folktale
We walk silently through the woods
After a cool fall rain
The grey mist makes the crackling dead leaves of autumn
Beneath our feet
Soft and slick and wet
The cotton-white fog of a November day
Makes you shiver
So I hold you close
We stop walking and both sigh
The clouds of our breath combine and lose themselves
The mist and the fog
We see the last wren
Bolt from its perch
Blown by the sudden
Northwest breeze
The fog drifts between the pines
The stark white November fog
Surrounds the two of us
Warm
Of some old English folktale
We walk silently through the woods
After a cool fall rain
The grey mist makes the crackling dead leaves of autumn
Beneath our feet
Soft and slick and wet
The cotton-white fog of a November day
Makes you shiver
So I hold you close
We stop walking and both sigh
The clouds of our breath combine and lose themselves
The mist and the fog
We see the last wren
Bolt from its perch
Blown by the sudden
Northwest breeze
The fog drifts between the pines
The stark white November fog
Surrounds the two of us
Warm
Should Be Spring (1985)
Wee snowflakes linger like diamonds on daffodils
Each one a miracle forged by the hands of God’s tiniest minions
At play in the bleary vapor hanging just overhead
A fat-breasted robin ripe with unlaid eggs
Bounds with purpose and pecks at the hard frosty ground
Unsatisfied, she continues her patient search
The brilliant green blades of the tulips stand icy guard
Keeping cached their beckoning scarlet cups
Until a more welcoming climate evolves
Silver clouds in minuet on a palette of white
The deceptive brightness of the overcast
Pierces my eyes
And I shudder
As my breath escapes
In a conspicuous cloud
From my face
I pull at my scarf
Muttering a playful, unmeant curse
Reveling in guilty secret
At the cruel magnificence
Of what should be spring
Each one a miracle forged by the hands of God’s tiniest minions
At play in the bleary vapor hanging just overhead
A fat-breasted robin ripe with unlaid eggs
Bounds with purpose and pecks at the hard frosty ground
Unsatisfied, she continues her patient search
The brilliant green blades of the tulips stand icy guard
Keeping cached their beckoning scarlet cups
Until a more welcoming climate evolves
Silver clouds in minuet on a palette of white
The deceptive brightness of the overcast
Pierces my eyes
And I shudder
As my breath escapes
In a conspicuous cloud
From my face
I pull at my scarf
Muttering a playful, unmeant curse
Reveling in guilty secret
At the cruel magnificence
Of what should be spring
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