Passaic Headwaters

I came here a lot with Jack after he died.
Now I’m back for the wood thrush I suppose,
and the gnats and mosquitoes.

I take my time along the path. My phone and I
listen for birds. A woodpecker drums
to tell his mate he’s near. My guess a flicker.

Where the sun breaks through the canopy
the smell of warm earth envelops me.
I feel the plants' breath. It's almost visible.

Fronds and leaves and limbs extend.
Some itchy, some sticky. Some burn.
The trail cuts back and the headwaters

are suddenly as loud as a boy splashing down
a ledge or two then quieting into the flowing creek.
I find his spot. It isn’t hard; it’s where sneakers

get soaked through and through. I kneel. Feel
the cool stone through my jeans. Surely spring rains
and snow melt years ago carried him to sea.

A blue jay calls from deep in the leaves. Muffled.
No barking. No giggling. No chasing fireflies.
A common jeering blue jay almost makes me cry.

He calls again.

Silence

Around 4am, maybe earlier, I hear God.

Noah. Noah it’s going to rain.

Build an ark.

Build it big enough to hold your animals

so your herds and flocks won’t drown

when the waters rise.

That voice is hard to ignore.

Noah didn’t. I couldn't.

That voice which every father and mother

ever born has heard sounds tonight

more like space junk falling from heaven,

or the wing beats a bat makes

as it escapes a laboratory.

It sounds like pension funds exhausted;

the market, our currency, our faith in each other,

all the fabrications we base our life on, collapsing.

If I can catch my breath

and if my ears stop ringing

maybe I can fall back to sleep

before the squall line crests the hill,

before rain and sleet whip the glass,

before the levee breaks and vigilantes

kick in the front door. If I started now

I could not fell enough trees.

Belt

We saw Pisa but you'll never see Venice.

There is a photo in front of me now--

you in my arms, Libby at my side--three

of us leaning, making the tower right.

That's one thing my therapist would say:

You feel guilty. I’d disagree, but he kept

coming back to it. I’d say I’m hard on myself,

a perfectionist. Take tennis I'd say,

I focus on the work not on winning.

Between half my age and hip the men are

who tuck their shirts these days into jeans.

I rescued a few button downs worn more

than a decade ago at the office

and in business class lounges far away

from home. Far away from you and Libby.

I committed to Hilary I’d wear them

in Venice--not just sackcloth and flannels.

It wasn’t just the sorting and packing

and the move; it was soccer again.

I replaced the belt. The one with a steel

tip and buckle, disintegrating as we speak

by sweat, and bending and sawing and tearing

autumn olive out of the ground. I will

have a stove at the cabin with a fire

you'll never feed. I want to feel less bad.

Guilt is flowering on barren ground.

The lake wants to still
and reflect the blue sky.

Why does the sky breathe
and disturb it so much?

high in the sky

smoke from the great fires
far south of here

yellows the light

look in the shadows

low between the firs
the dark places against which
you see sunlight

catch the faint rain

Rising

Above the treetops

two hawks

or maybe falcons

fly south with purpose

straight into the setting winter sun.

They join the others

become crows

their black breasts lit gold.

Lost Word

A rustle in the canopy too muffled for a squirrel.
I find red in my binoculars. A crest.
A pileated woodpecker resolves from the green silence.
A black mask pulled across her eyes and cheeks
makes her bill appear even longer.

Pileated is not a metaphor;
pileum is a synonym for cap.

A whisper.
Her mate settles on a nearby branch.
A red stripe extends a Joker’s open gash.
They don’t migrate. Year round
they stay and stay together.

Quieter still.
In the woods beyond, leaves.