ACCOUNT OF MY DAYS

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  keyword(s) in poems:

Sequence: 19

FOLLOW AS A CONSEQUENCE
the migrators...


HIS EYES
Grant shades his eyes. He can see what could happen. He knows...


AT THE SOUTH UNION CEMETERY
my shadow entangled with the other shadows...


GINSENG
a pair of golden hands...


MY PRIZES MY AWARDS MY HONORS
that reading those decades ago...


IF I HAD TO
if I had to walk...


AFTER THE SUN HAS GONE DOWN
three bright things:...


DONE
the hand strokes...


10/14/11
a fire burns fiercely...


WHAT OTHERS THINK
no longer matters...


WHOLE LIFE
day of cold rain then late afternoon...


COMMUNICATION
I pray to God as if...


CHANGES
I had hoped to be different...


OUT FROM TO
out of love of self of family of books...


3x5 SNAPSHOT
Five Buzzards on the lawn, all related to me. The black clothing...


untitled
lax...


AFTERPARTY
moon just down...


THIRST
it must be one of the spells cast on us...


12/10/11
sky and pavement both clear...


12/15/11
rain all night storming on the roof...


TO PASS THE TIME
I thought of pretending it was 35 years ago but I couldn't...


A SIDE TRIP
road but a few ride on...


THEORY OF NOTHING
afternoon...


WHILE WAITING FOR THE TEST RESULTS
you can play solitaire...


OLD WOOD
branch to branch...


TO DUST
dust I will leave you alone again...


LOCAL HISTORY
walking to the monroe county public library...


ECHO
if when following an echo...


CARRY WHAT
every extinction respects...


SHAMASH
was a name we gave to the sun...


A FIELD OF BOXES
its owner the one who lives far away...


OLD DUST ON OLD BOOKS
there really was only ever the one way home...


THE LONG STRETCH
out of those southern marshes and shores...


OLD AND NEW
I complain of my own clumsiness...


TENDER
when the fire sinks low a little stirring helps...


OBSERVATIONAL
the starvation of our time looks like...


WHAT IT IS LIKE NOW
mid-writing mid-word the one...


FEELINGS AND FACTS
The footprint left in clay today--...


AMONGST US
paper burns...


JUST ANOTHER GRAVE
distinguished as they all are...


REPORT TO MYSELF
the fevers nightly for a week...


A BOOK OF CLASSIC ERRORS
if your name is not listed...


COSMIC
the worldless water...


THIS SHINING
this life so rich with coincidence...


THE COOLDOWN
everything piled into the drought has been wiped away...


MY BED
my grandma's blind stroking of the table...


7/29/12
this summer is tougher than its trees...


untitled
there was a man walking with his bag on his back...


NIGHT SKY
in a number that makes naming unmanageable...


WHAT DO I KNOW?
years past and far away behind me...


untitled
his own language...


LESSON
the young deer in my yard...


POEM ENDING WITH WHAT I JUST ATE
record the seasons...


untitled
that boulder shrugging up...


STEPPING OUTDOORS AFTER WAKING
looking at the almost light...


10/10/12
a record of what happened...


ALMOST A YEAR SINCE MY MOTHER DIED
some restless leaves fill the air...


NEWS
new light new air the chatter...


11/1/12
this early now momentous and young...

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