Nature, the Other, the Big Outside
In Memory of Howard Zahniser

Okay, now don’t look me square in the eye
but watch my ears wiggle — you see him there,
my father, your grandfather, a wise guy
(who was also a wise-guy), taught me to stare
at nothing hard enough to make my ears move.
It’s a great skill if like me you can’t dance
but still feel the need to strut some and groove
dressed not in Nordstrum slacks but Goodwill pants.

Okay, open that window there — yes, wide.
What’s out there is everything that’s not you.
Sure, nature—the other, the big outside,
what redeems you, where you go to renew
yourself, learn to listen, maybe make vows.
Smell that? Not fire and brimstone — balsam boughs.

Read More Poems From The Adirondack Almanack HERE.

Iniquity

So many snows ago.
Deer-tracks marked a journey,
Tear-tracks marked a journey,
As train-tracks grew cold, collected rust, and families
Moved away, never to return.
Too hard to forage, for man and beast alike.
So came this fight for survival, dictated more and more
By the dollar, Almighty Dollar,
Killing life, killing jobs, killing hope,
Pandering for spoils, preying on the innocent,
Robbing the future.
Northern Lights,
How you still explode the sky to silhouette the beauty
Of these mountains,
The power,
With North Star guiding ever true.
We cry to see your light dimmed by such vast iniquity,
Illuminating once-fertile bowers, callously raided.
Helplessly, we stand in the rough-shod, abandoned tracks
Of our forbears,
To inherit an ominous fruition.

Read More Poems From The Adirondack Almanack HERE.

Stars Long Dead

How hard this now seems
to leave so few memories
Who will reckon us up
once we’ve finished here
Stars stud the sky but pay
no mind to who’s elected
Many looking bright flared
out last lights eons gone at
186,000 miles per second
as the universe’s vastness
makes them seem to shine
still to astonish us tonight

Read More Poems From The Adirondack Almanack HERE.