Welcome At Sunset
Come, evening, quiet the restless day!
Bright colors, be still in the wavering light.
From one stem two leaves pull away.

Orange, huge, the horizon’s sun gives way
Under the weight of dusk to the pressing night.
Come, evening, quiet the restless day!

Behind my house poplars reach and sway,
Their branches longing for a last kiss of sunlight.
From one stem two leaves pull away.

The hopeful field fades from green to gray,
Too shallow to hold the escaping white light.
Come, evening, quiet the restless day!

Within me too the spirits of night and day
Mingle, blend, then resist, then fight.
From one stem two leaves pull away.

Colors delight me and light with its play,
Yet peace often finds me as I welcome the night.
Come, evening, quiet the restless day!
From one stem two leaves pull away.
Poem For A Friend Lost In Space
It is when you are coming home
on a winter night, when the snow radiates
a blue light under stars, and the dull
point at the end of your ski pole
lifts itself to the endless black sky,
that you imagine you are as big as the universe,
not the lonely figure coursing along,
trailing the oaks in their silent march,
with nowhere to go but ahead or behind
on your skis in the blinding night.

With your head full of stars,
does the darkness reach behind your eyes,
or are you filled in silence by an unseen light,
the radiating violet of your strongest imaginings?
When you stare ahead, your arms
extended on each side to grasp the ski poles,
no one can know: that you
are one universe, light years away, skiing
across the blue dunes —
the snow, the snow, the snow.