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Unlike us who noisily make our way, the owl

rises silently or sits hidden among the trees,

vigilant and aware, his presence marked by the echo

of his call late in the night to those awake

and listening, caught unaware in these moments of quiet.

Porcelain Dolls

(For Kaycee)

We are the fragile people,

porcelain dancers posed on a shelf

too high and narrow, poised there

and waiting to fall – smiling –

to smash ourselves to the floor.

Our painted smiles keep us there,

protected, safe, but they can’t stop

the touch of others who do not,

can not, see our hearts or know

the loneliness we feel, sitting here,

shelved and wishing it were not

so far to the floor below,

unprotected and afraid, vulnerable.

Remembering Trains

We heard the whistle first, shrill and loud,

announcing an approaching train fast approaching,

two short blasts and a long wail echoing back,

a universal signal across the Vermont hills

where we lived those youthful summers, school

long forgotten and too far away on a summer’s day.

A distant locomotive rumbled softly toward us,
growing louder, bearing down, passing through

our little town, westward bound, westward and gone;

and we dropped our toys and bikes, serious pursuits,

and dashed to the tracks’ edge, two parallel rails

leading away towards places beyond the here and now,

exotic places we only dreamed of, existing nowhere.

Waiting, patient, our expectations high, we watched

where the rails converged around the bend;

the ground around us trembled now, the rumble

crescendo’d to an engine’s heavy roar and the screech

of metal crushed against an iron rail.

I see it; here it comes, someone calls out,

the prestige of seeing it first, and we all turned,

frozen as the train grew larger, fast upon us.

Our arms pumped a signal, a wave to the engineer,

who returned a short blast of his horn to acknowledge us,

and we began the long count of cars in tow,

a long line behind three engines, extending

beyond our sight, beyond the hill, boxcars

and rail cars, flatbeds and tankers,

a count soon lost in the rhythmic whoosh and clack

of railcars passing, too many cars, too quickly passing.

Counting them, though, is but a passing of time;

our anticipation is for the red caboose tailing behind.

We would hop aboard this caboose, if we could,

let it carry us away, take us where we longed to be,

somewhere else, adventuring, discovering places

we might not ever see, our futures set well beyond Jericho,

so far away, so uncertain, so eager to be discovered.

In sight now, the caboose stops our counting,

our shouts drowned out by the train’s noise,

or unheard in our daydreaming as we dashed

down the railway’s bed to speed its arrival,

speed its passing. We waved and shouted to a man

sitting high above us, boxed there, his job

but to watch for kids like us, for he, too, perhaps,

was once a chaser of trains, a young boy awaiting

a train to take him away into tomorrow, 

to exotic places across the Vermont hills

where he dreamed to go, where we dreamed to follow.

In the ensuing silence we stood, quiet ourselves,

watching the caboose continue on, chasing the train

westward towards a future we could only dream of,

a future too far away, too uncertain, and we returned

to the toys and bikes and the summer

we suspended to chase a train we would never take,

to chase the dreams of youth this season

spent among the hills of Vermont, growing and eager.

The Age of Aquarius

It was the dawning of an Age of Aquarius

when we lay ourselves across the steps

of the Capitol building and sat

chained together by the ideals we held close,

a world without war and violence, but peace,

one people, harmony and understanding,

sympathy and trust abounding, even as we asked

the questions, how many roads must a man walk down?

Our hair and our clothes and our music set us apart,

us against them, tuning them out, this establishment

bent on violence and death and beating us back, beating

us down; and perhaps they did as we traded in our bell

bottoms and tie-dyed shirts and peace signs

for the uniforms of adulthood and took our places

in the workforce and family life, this new order,

though we lie dormant, even as we waited.

And the war ended and the soldiers came home,

re-assimilated – or not – watching through broken eyes,

like us, for the sun to rise and with it another day,

another age, another Aquarius dawning.

Now, are we again seeing the end of Pisces’

values and a new dawning turn to daylight?

Dormant no more, and remembering, we rise with this new day,

chained still together by the ideals of peace,

harmony and understanding, locked arm in arm,

new chains binding us, together made stronger,

lying again on the steps of the Capitol building,

as we did before, millions together rising up,

hell, no, we won’t go, won’t go away this time,

beat down no more, nor beat back;

for we can never forget, nor will we: No more

falsehoods or derision, golden living dreams

of visions, mystic crystal revelation

and the mind’s true liberation.

Equality, respect, an uplifting of spirit

and a unity of humaneness, a renewed consciousness

of rightness rising in a world gone mad,

a global cause begun again as it does each age,

each generation, growing stronger and stronger,

with the dawning of a new age of Aquarius rising,

waking in us, millions and millions united

for the cause of humanity, one people,

the moon again in the seventh house

and Jupiter aligned with Mars –

Peace will guide the planets,

and love will stir the stars.

Visitation

I’d never seen an otter here before

in these years of quiet retirement;

still haven’t, only his tracks,

but it was enough for me to seek him out,

hoping for a glimpse of him bounding away

as he’d arrived, tracking across the lake

still groaning under a heavy layer of ice and snow

this early spring morning, an awkward leap and slide,

making his way across to the shore where I live.

Or perhaps I’d see him peeking out from where he lay

hidden below my dock, still snow-covered and stowed

away for winter’s safe keeping, him safely

out of sight there and cautious, guarded.

But I found him gone, in the morning,

his departure visible in fresh tracks,

little claws marks left in the snow

and a slide down the bank on the other side

and away, back through the woods to the bog beyond,

gone on this cold spring day, cold and wind-blown.

I have been visited and nurtured,

touched by a comforting closeness

of another being sharing his life with me,

though unseen except for the tracks of his passing.