ACCOUNT OF MY DAYS

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6 7 8 9 10
11 12 13 14 15
16 17 18 19 20

  keyword(s) in poems:

Sequence: 7

TRIPLE OUGHT
we have endured...


TURN OR BE TURNED
waking...


untitled
I am...


WEAK
my ill-rising...


FIRST DAY OF SPRING A BLIZZARD VISITS US
this last snow's weight and power...


BOOK OF THE DAY
a version of no corrections...


SNOWFALL
a cancel of...


HERE, YOU
valley of the powerless...


untitled
the minutes...


NOTES IN HIS OWN HAND
About the destroying condition....


NEIGHBORLY
our day...


untitled
out of the door...


JUST BARELY
here it is difficult...


untitled
quoted before I speak...


TRUE
time to notice...


POINT OUT
here is an impossibility...


COMPANY
there is a quiet before I speak...


HEARTENED
almost midnight...


IN PROCESS
giving thanks or sass...


CONTINUANCE
a face to look into for...


STRUGGLE TO UNDERSTAND
fresh tears...


PRAYER
heart made of dirt...


MONDAY
the call to remind me...


JUST LIKE ME
trying to move sideways...


HOW IT IS
the old smile...


THUNDERSTORM LIGHTNING FLASHES
the storm's welcome...


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AT LEAST ONE PERSON
a shell game in which...


FOR THOSE LYING WAKEFUL AS IT STORMS
thunder off in the distance...


4/22/96
press of rain...


CONSCIOUSNESS
what grabs it...


CLEAR DARK
there should be...


untitled
see what...


START OF THE DAY
tight...


ADDRESSING YOU
if you are staring at me...


untitled
the strange diction...


untitled
3 a.m. an owl calls out...


WEATHER REPORT
showers and thundershowers...


NOTATION
I allow myself to be influenced. It is ...


WHEN YOU
arrive in ocean a wave arises inside you...


THEFT OF LINES FROM CERNUDA
Sleep...


10/20/96
my circles run through the woods...


untitled
held up my empty secrets...


THE FEELING OF IT
North begins hereabouts...


TIME TO GO
winter light...


A PLACE
it closes to them...


CLOSING MY EYES
as I die...


STORY ABOUT SAFETY
the wind up...


untitled
a voice in the room...


11/19/96
words rest...


untitled
clouds form...


POEM OF SLEEP
sky mists...


MUSIC
a music that makes me...


WHEN I READ
I read to keep steady...


SOS
the page shifts no rest a sea...


NOW REMEMBERING
the rain cuts...


CARRIED
I give up on my fingers...


HAWK
strong hunter...


OVER AND OUT
crossing over the creek bed...

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