Recurrent Themes

Thirteen times I wrote of Sophia,
sipping in a Provence café
whispering to my soledad in Spanish phrases.
Franz and Pablo I owe a lot:
thirteen green flashes at the end
of F.’s dock should do
as tribute to everything I never knew
and can never forget.
Retreating into what seems
like a winter’s quiet dignity,
a blackbird’s song
and time.

"The Verity of Names" or "That Poem I could never get Right"

Once, as a child, I flew barefoot through an old field in springtime, thought myself a grey goose or a drop of rain.

Later, older, I found myself estranged, a bird of the air condemned to kick up blossoms of dust as I ran.

Before I knew it, I glimpsed what I took for me among a flock of magazine clippings, chasing the feeling, patches of color and moon roofs.

Later, older, I reflect on what it means:

all this time in my hands

and wonder if this is what my father
really meant to say.