until we can find it

until we can find it

april is not a poet's month

what we thought we'd mastered

we found we've lost

i'll take a winter's worth

at creative cost

before i'd give april

a penny's worth of second thoughts

april is a time to plow and seed

a time of water, mud, and expanding bees

a time for baseball players to dream

a Koufax or Gibson perfect season

april is a time of the hand not the mind

a time to do and not to rhyme

daughters dress in brighter colors

shoulders and navels go uncovered

they dance around with seldom lovers

the one who’s lost is the one who’s jealous

the farmer's market and roadside stand

amish girls sit on the running boards claim

a beardless boy to drive the buggie home

after the sunday go-to-meeting psalms

a crocus is the sweepstakes winner

first to pass the test of winter

afterward the trees grow green

and i lose my feeling

for philosophical reflection and poetics

poorly read and poorly measured

my verse stands out apathetic

competing with the apple blossom,

flowering pear, and okame cherry

offside, offset, and out of rhythm

my sleepy words profound only

in their contemptible lack of meaning

as commerce lifts front porch voices

we scratch the bark to see who's living

vines begin to cover stockade fences

dogs extend their masters' leashes

behind old walls spinsters whisper

and plot new troubles for the neighbors

a poet needs a frosty morning

not walk barefoot like a postmodern jesus

perhaps i'll spend some time at the beach

before the tourists take their leases

read sartre on the bay at havre de grace  

the sunrise crimson on the chesapeake

wearing sandals with a velcro lace

no, i'll buy flowers, abandon verses

oxydol clean my dirty vases

buy my wife a dozen roses

mow the grass, fertilize bushes

wait for the return of the muses

did they fly north or remain down south?

or perhaps they sought a water-spout

to summer home their afternoons

and loon their evenings in dreary song

it must have been the weather, no doubt,

that confused their navigator's whereabouts

i can hear the wind but i can’t describe it

my feel for things i cannot see

have somehow turned to real life things 

like the two for ones at the acme,

having enough gas for summer grillings, 

or late night oaths so unfulfilling

a poet needs a frosty morning

not daffodils and nesting robins

they are all quite distracting,

debilitating, and irritating

perhaps they are best for novelists

whose words portray settings missed

the green hue blushes blur my eyes

as if too sleepy to sleep the hour wise

april is not a poet's month

young girls throw kisses and poets die

old lovers cross and feign surprise

someone giggles and we realize

that all we have ever really wanted 

hides behind leaves until we can find it.

2015