The Hudson River Diaries

A Compendium of Poetry and Natural History

gleaned from observations in and around Sparkill, New York

The Good Thing

It’s late afternoon

And it has cleared up

Into one of those blues

That won’t display in pixels

 

The sun stands at unknown tangents

Cicadas and crickets are

Humming inside me

I’m filled with September air

The blue flash of snappers

Testing filament

 

On a good day, men shamelessly

Exult in the death of small things

 I often stand and watch, feeling

The urge to join them in the killing

 

I have seen this, too

Down in the marsh at creekmouth

Whorls of water, sweeping lives

Towards the swords

Of kingfishers and herons

 

Rushes roll in the breeze

Lavender with seed

Bowing into a flood tide

That does not know where to end itself

 

Such things are not measured

In ordinary ways

Who can sense the length of what is right

Or know how deep it runs

I thought I could, once

But in these latter  years

Compass needles

Are less reliable than they once were

 Every blade of grass points North

 

So the good thing comes

Born from the sun as it rises on the east bank

Poured from the golden light that spills across the marsh

Counted in steps up the hill

And timed by the headlong race of dogs

Into futures they are prepared to trust

 

Inside the light of this nearest star

Names shatter bedrock; it spills down slopes

I go there to claim what is not mine

Drive iron rods into the soil

And urinate to mark my territory

 

Let pink watermelon juice

Drip down my chin

 

I will celebrate this dying

With the best of them

2009

All material copyright 2011 by Lee van Laer. Do not reproduce without permission.