The Maynard
Spring 2016

Auteur

      Moodier than Cancun voices keeping minutes,
than haywagons then,
      than the American Irish another winter Saturday,
as if this were the way
      it ought to go with recreation, he's turned
by an impulse yes,
      and acting like himself, designing
their next ride,
      scripting futures, in myriad
reflexive
      cadences.

      So no one's supposed the smuggled and sheer
implausibles, the flex-studies,
      if you will, supposed the breaching of village walls
and the live fire,
      the many kinds of promises, and, slow learners,
yes, acting
      like ourselves, what it would mean to dream
in monochromes,
      and wake to these wastes, rusts,
to the green—
      gold, rose-gold tones
of an
      exhaustion.

            *

      Then it's twenty years, intentions pitched
to fog and harvest miles,
      the summer poems unfinished still. But the fog's
not, clearing and come again,
      the beating up's not everything, where
miniature ponies concentrate,
      swishing their tails, smearing what light there is,
as this red-tail posts, zeroes in
      on supper, on chicory, punctually blue, on
the thoughtfulness,

      the thoughtlessness or dreaming spent among
what's left of shoulder grasses,
      or on these scribbles now, the sensible
streaks spread out
      like streaks on lowland water, like the thoughts
a figure might have fallen through on,
      the start of migrations say, begun in chilled
impoverishment, with
      You as the subject, source, distinctly personal,
and the coppery fall tones,
      so that the lingering imperishable green
should not embarrass, nor
      the look of fields, where the corn's already
taken, this rented equipment
      idling, emerging from, retreating into fog
or realms of sure disaster,
      where morning dogs turn fawns the reeds
cannot conceal, beheld
      custodially, with driving ahead, a knee,
you could say,
      cooperative, bent on the night's
return, on the miles
      behind the night's
good
      company.

            *

      In yellowing time, yes, with yellowing
and wild stuff
      scaling state fences, you hear the sighs,
sympathies,
      and the adventuring little breezes,
not much of a story
      then, but fallings of fog away,
chill come
      to the back gate's hinges
and
      the shed
hasps.

      I think of Monet, Renoir, searching shapes
to seize
      their undiscovered structures, their place
in the riffs, in
      the running plasmas of existence, and think
of the myriad
      reflexive cadences, of narrative no less,
loosened a little
      by the flames, the dry-rattling acres,
by this moon,
      as it's always been at harvesting,
shining
      alike on moonships,
and
      the concept
vehicles,

      through the stillness obliging characters,
moodier than moon
      maybe, and all its winter promises, than
conversations,
      stirred by the woodscents, by
the sufficient cider,
      by the looks of homes he thinks
must have sprung up
      while the moon cycled,
inviting
      these few tonight, to
his
      attention, and
to dancing.