Poems from the home page, 2011
UNEXPECTED
It jumps into my field
of vision as I drive
around a bend
on the shaded two-lane
road just south of Oyster Bay:
the first tree I have seen
this season topped
with its autumn crown
of orange.
Why here? Why today?
I wonder, in a way,
that has become so
familiar: unexpected, like
a poem.
Confluence
“Shenandoah” . . .
“Potomac” . . .
Such native names are poetic
enough. No need to add the word “river.”
I watch them come together between granite cliffs,
flowing over and around boulders that once fell
into the streambed, or else emerge
as water grinds its way through centuries past.
At this moment the current is peaceful enough for rafters,
for paddlers of kayaks, also for the geese and herons.
I spy an eagle hovering above the portal
to the railroad tunnel on the North bank.
On this spot. in 1761 a ferry was established where Robert
Harper had already built his cabin. I do not doubt that you
will now recall why the town of "Harper’s Ferry" is historic.
Today, visiting again after fifty years, I discover a footbridge
next to the railroad tracks, decide it must have been constructed
since the last time I stood waving to an engineer
as his freight train passed over this trestle.
I think too of the visitors’ center which has since
appeared above the town, the new roadways,
the shuttle bus on which we traveled down.
Some things do change, I tell myself.
Walking half way to the Maryland shore I stand
on a perch—not as high as an eagle’s perch
but high enough for me to see how the brownish water
from the north and greenish from the south flow
side-by-side, each keeping to its own half of the channel
for as far downstream as I am able to see. Then,
considering again the reason so many pilgrims travel here
(it is not just for the scenery), I visualize the clash
of two human rivers, of different colors, and how even today
each still flows on its own side of the channel—though we
are half a century downstream from my previous visit,
three times that from the time when a raging torrent sucked
John Brown’s band of freedom seekers into its flood. I walk
back, contemplating how both honeysuckle and poison ivy
grow in such profusion along these riverbanks.
Some things do not seem to change, I tell myself.
Some things do not seem to change.
ILLEGAL BORDER CROSSER
"I am an illegal border crosser,”
your poem begins. Yes,
I think,
me too.
So many borders that I cross
would be illegal if this word
had a proper meaning: land,
once stolen, then
stolen again and, in the end,
marked off by whosoever
might demonstrate
sufficient force.
Let these words serve
as your warning—you
who continue to post guards
at the checkpoints, thus
propping up some myth of security.
For we are coming: an army
of illegal border crossers
to cross each and every one of them
off the face
of this earth.
Because you are living
on borrowed time
as well as on stolen land
and we are coming.
Let this poem serve
as your warning.
And when our work is done
we will draw a new map
of the planet uncrossed
by a single border, allowing
each and every one
of our diverse humanity
to enjoy, finally,
a proper measure
of peace
and security.
(With thanks to Mike Graves
for his original poem:
Illegal Border Crosser.)