At a Train Station on Pluto
for M.M.
So I’m kicking up the dust on this cold planet, getting used to Pluto’s feeble atmosphere. I’m mixing what I had with what I sought, taking tablets as directed, feeding the cat and my shrinking parents, feeling the fear when no one’s there to talk. I believe in space and so, my friends, please know time is perfect in this quiet land. I’ve more than I can usefully account for – getting off on yoga in the mornings, overhearing voices from the ether. waiting for whatever train comes by, I’m listening to a songbird out on Charon, warbling like he doesn’t have a care. Just like me he’s secretly observing rules that have been painted gold. So dare be kind, my frozen fellow earthlings: I gamble on your voices coming near. Coole Park in Winter
Frosty trails diverge but Coole’s inured to thumps and muffled human sounds. Where are the swans that Yeats observed? They had their fill of lamentations on life’s transience a hundred years ago. That’s time too, and the path is short. And all the knitted brows and tears that fall will leave it undisturbed. A pair of swans limn the lake evoking Willie’s verses, and apart they drift. Legs work unobserved, while kestrels float above the trees and see and don’t see something nearing peace. Diminuendo in January
Hair brushed, keys found,
I’m anxious to commute –
snowdrops, like random thoughts,
strewn across the lawn.
Why does the pattern make me pause
before I take the wheel?
Beauties standing out from grass,
are they lost because I won’t be here?
When precisely do they fade?
Dutifully, like the cellist,
my bow is rosined and correct –
briefcase at the ready.
Inside, snowdrops echo;
music drifting down.
Flight of the dragonfly 