Hamlet: Do you see yonder cloud that’s almost in shape of a camel?
Polonius: By th’ mass, and ’tis like a camel indeed.
Hamlet: Methinks it is like a weasel.
Polonius: It is backed like a weasel.
Hamlet: Or like a whale.
Polonius: Very like a whale.
—Shakespeare
Forget the old science of water droplets
clinging to sky-blown dust.
The truth is these are the sailboats of gods,
climbing and crossing waves of sky
in a race to the borders of daylight.
See how their sails turn red at sunset?
Then again, these seem less like sails
than wind, than the misty breath of giants
snoring under the rocks and forests,
shaking the world in their sleep.
Actually, though, they’re less like breath
than words, than airmailed messages
sent by lakes to faraway valleys.
I wish I could crack their code.
The truth really is they’re flying islands,
mirrors of thought, lakes in the sky,
modeling clay for cherubs and angels,
airliners filled with traveling dreams.
from The Southern Review, to appear in This Easy Falling
Our eyes were born for such generous sunlight,
our bodies to breathe such congenial air.
A high blue sky. A couple of clouds.
Songbirds in trees of vigorous green.
On a morning like this, the man shoveling dirt
feels as though he could lift a mountain,
while the woman who waters tomato seedlings
believes they will grow forever.
Who sees the girl on the back porch sobbing?
The day-moon sharp as an uplifted knife?
from Midwest Quarterly, to appear in This Easy Falling
They look so lost, staring in windows,
or standing wide-eyed by a neighbor’s pool,
or stumbling up to a boulevard island,
pausing and gawking at cars around them.
With heads high or close to the ground
, they wander as if looking for something,
a highway sign for a homebound exit,
a key they dropped to a door now closed.
A car honk startles. Sharp ears erect,
they take trembling steps, unsure what to do,
then quicken their long-legged trek through a world
that won’t welcome, nor leave them alone.
They lie down at night on some golf-course green
or brambly edge of a railroad yard
and dream of a brook through a columbine meadow,
moonlight breezing through pine.
from Tipton Poetry Journal, to appear in This Easy Falling
Look for them, and they vanish.
But they’ll come to you indirectly,
out of the twilight corners.
Simply sit back on your evening porch,
and let your eyes wander the blue horizon
into the August night.
Hear the deep-weeded dirge of crickets?
Laughter fading from nearby yards?
Soon you dissolve and the wind recedes.
House lights go out. The night grows cold.
And there, above the far glow of the city,
another star falls. Then another.
The others, too— the ones that don’t fall—
are turning their secret pages.
from 24 Hours, to appear in This Easy Falling
This is how we should always live—
our days unclouded and easy.
Now, while a veil of late summer haze
softens a trestled and towered skyline,
we watch white sails cross a blue horizon
as waves lather glistening sand.
Swim-suited lovers splash one another
and fall into shoreline foam.
Slicked-up sunbathers bake their backs
or read on beach chairs, drinks in hand.
Even the gulls seem to take the day off,
watching the world from mooring posts.
When the sun melts into smoldering oils
and the shoreline grows dark, deserted and cold,
we’ll sit around fires and re-tell our stories
to the stars and the rhythmic hush of waves.
from Midwest Quarterly, to appear in This Easy Falling
Tom Raithel's poetry chapbook, Dark Leaves, Strange Light, is available through:
finishinglinepress.com
amazon.com (sold out)