Poetry

August, goldenrod blowing. We walk
into the graveyard, to find
my grandfather’s grave. Ten years ago

This time the leaving felt especially good
  as if I’d moved
toward some clean elemental selfishness

Once, my father took me to the Rockaways
  during a hurricane
to see how the ocean was behaving,

I find, after all these years, I am a believer—
I believe what the thunder and lightning have to say;
I believe that dreams are real,
        and that death has two reprisals;
I believe that dead leaves and black water fill my heart.

Watching a couple of crows
playing around in the woods, swooping
in low after each other, I wonder
if they ever slam into the trees.

It is an old drama
this disappearance of the leaves,
this seeming death
of the landscape.

He manages like somebody carrying a box
that is too heavy, first with his arms
underneath. When their strength gives out,