(in memory of Patricia Lewis Smith, 1953-2005)

Time may absolve us of some things we’ve done,
If only by its vast indifference;
More problematic is the nagging sense
Of possibilities forever gone.
Bright daffodils on February’s lawn
Brim with regrets, for all their innocence—
Arrangements that were never sent. Years hence,
They will loom large as living comes undone:
Soft chalices of golden winter light,
Champagne flutes where the wounded may not drink.
Try as we may, we never get loss right:
It stuns to speechlessness just when we think
The future will be bearable, if not bright;
The heart contracts, once-cherished landscapes shrink.

Poem inspired by the Ken Burns film, “Jazz.”

Someone has told him, half in jest, that cows
Are very fond of music. Now the “Bird,”
Car idling in a midnight pasture, blows
Cool alto sax for an astonished herd.
Bewildered livestock turn their gaze horn-ward,
The jazz man’s leaning figure doubled in
The turgid depths of bovine eyes, each chord
A galaxy poised waiting to begin.
The horn’s unfurling cry is almost human,
Decries the agony of what it means
To be a cow — and what to be a man —
What grand improvisations lie between.
The onyx sky transcribes ascending bars
Brilliant with crisp arpeggios of stars.

                                                              “…I strove
To love you in the old high way of love….”
—W.B. Yeats, “Adam’s Curse”