ACCOUNT OF MY DAYS

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  keyword(s) in poems:

Sequence: 10

FRESH START
the author of many leaves...


I ASK YOU
what I am about to do and what...


untitled
The work defines itself, pulls itself...


LARRY MILLER
when you call back there to order the flowers...


ADDENDUM TO LARRY MILLER
punched him in the stomach once...


MY FORTY-NINTH BIRTHDAY
the balance point between years...


THE DROUGHT
if the drought means anything we haven't been told...


I SPEND
hours alone with my books...


SO FAR AS I CAN
the trees at night stretch out...


ANGEL MOUND
stone spades hammers awls...


untitled
sleep drunk from a glass of sleep...


EAST
East, innocence, enormous, a blush over half the sky. Now that...


WHAT IS FUCKED UP ABOUT THIS
is a question that can be answered...


CAN'T STOP TALKING
sat so still you noticed...


SETTLEMENT
1....


PAUSE ON THE ROAD IN CUMBERLAND GAP TENNESSEE
It was speed, the technology of rapidity, that made the nation pos-...


ON THE STAIRS IN THE DARK
it is late to be starting again...


THREE SLEEPS
a sleep that wanders...


WINTER PRAISES
of abandoned nests...


untitled
what will always be true?...


KEEPING AT IT
I recite the alphabet in the traditional way...


TALKING TO THE STONES
I am living before you dissolve...


NOT LAMENTING
a lament I am forbidden to speak...


A:
I think it's that I always had the feeling that what is really true,...


HAVE COME HERE
even when I'm late...


THE DAY AFTER THE DAY AFTER
a place in the paperwork...


7/25/00
beetles crushed between my fingers...


MY CURRENT MOOD
certain observations have broken their heads...


STILL
making no effort if I can...


GOLDFINCH ON A WIRE
black line in his feet...


SUMMER PRAISES
the ground-filling rain...


LISTENING TO
the music that keeps me up late...


THE STONE BOAT
that sled of thick oak planks...


DISAPPOINTMENT
under the shade of the words I wrote...


AUGUST
the fields with their fine catch...


AT THE ENCORE CAFE
with your roast potatoes...


WANDERING POEM
on the road...


MY VACANCY
the old hours come back...


untitled
I protest...


8/3/01
when I go inside...


ONE MOTION
swifts of the city come and go...


THE YEAR OF MY ABSENCE
a number of stones under my feet...


REFUSAL
I am awake now...


11/26/01
in the dark before dawn the stars...


WINTER GENESIS I
mornings on this stone seat...


WINTER GENESIS II
under cold tree branches stacked stones outline...

1937


the Ohio in flood
my parents have not yet met

my father is a young man 
trying to work out a way
to avoid being a farmer
and just beginning to
fail at one alternative after another
he has not yet reached the last one
and failed at it too
which will force him to show
his true excellence

my mother is still in school
and probably already as angrily unsatisfied
as she will be later
probably as funny and beguiling
as greedy of attention
as sharp-tongued and sad
as eager to tell a story
probably already dreaming of mountains and cities

far to the south of them
another Ohio lays on top of the first
together they escape the banks
that have always defined "Ohio River"
and run over the surrounding lands
ruining homes and scraping away crops
killing and exiling many

for ages people have preferred to live by rivers
it offers many advantages
especially as settlements grow larger
they crowd their houses near the water
they send and receive by it
they get their news off it
and from time to time this happens
and they get their sorrow too

what did my mother and father hear about it?
a disaster so far away it couldn't touch them
but close enough there must have been much talk
probably their knowledge of it was slight
and quickly drifted to the back of the mind
life can be hard enough to account for
without worrying about others' heartaches