Painting by Elaine Brown Folgar
Where I Am
In a house
full of rooms
filled with books.On a ridge,
in a grove of
black locust.In a world
raised by ladders
and hooksfrom the bridge
between hocus
and pocus.Near a field
grazed by cows
and wild turkeys.On a porch
freshly painted
deep blue.On a stage
or a stair
where my work isthe bone
I both toss
and pursue.On a chair
that belonged to
a dead man.By a window
be-speckled
with grime.All my gifts,
and the ghosts
in my head andmy heart
worn transparent
by time.
Lonely Pony
(Halcott, New York—2018)
Around the bend,
enclosed by open
fields, unheeded
by day, by night,
no other figure in sight,
just the lonely pony—there, in the yard
beyond the fence,
the opposite
of turbulence.Forever passing,
driving fast,
I'm ever-grasping
with my eye
what's always flying by
and always yet remains—what's planted there
in greenest grass,
a lonely pony
motionless.When I am dead
in heart, in head,
and the road that led
me here has all but vanished,
when all my world's been ravaged—then stars in a dome
of blackened honey
will lullaby
the lonely pony.
The Raft of Thee
—for Dave & Chrissy
Clouds rock the sky, rocks cloud the sea.
Light is the will in the wave that lofts the raft of thee.
There's a flight of steps that carries off. And a boat that brings
what fog lifts, between storms, when salt stings.
White is the wall of the cave bequeathed the refugee.White-crowned till drowned, then ever after azure-finned
by the pale ledge, then the blue gap, in every wind.
There's a black net, or a far bridge. And a god who leans,
who looks away at water's edge: a stone that steams
the solid smoke of dreams. Everything is what it seems.Gray, the ghostly land that stares us out to sea.
Gold, the scrap of strand tides dredge so patiently.
There's the steep climb, the cold plunge, the bold drift.
There's the old tale, like a blue veil, snagged on the cliff.
But white is the wall of the cave bequeathed the refugee.
Clouds. Rock. The sky. Rocks. Cloud. The sea.
