Hunger as Focus

Wads of newspapers
New York Times
Glens Falls Post-Star
Albany Times-Union
With flames to pulp
kindling ignores news
Favors votes to get
dinner on the table

Read More Poems From The Adirondack Almanack HERE.

Sunlit Winter Meadow

The beauty of this

Sparkling, sunlit snowscape

Mantling the meadow

Warms and opens wide my heart,

I praise and consider uncountable

Individual snowflakes

Imagine masses of people

Harmoniously packed together as

A human quilt covering the meadow

In vibrant splendor.

In the workings of the human heart,

It lives and breathes,

Concept learned from the newborn child,

Born ‘neath rough wooden eaves.

Hands reaching out in heaven-sent grace,

Life born again,

Lighting sky and earth below,

Need Caritas, Amen.

Today and every day we’re given,

Need Caritas, Amen.

COLD

The snow squeaks underfoot
and dusts your parka white
Nostrils velcro together
While every thing sparkles
Smoke rises flagpole straight
And the chickadees eat seed from your hand.

Read More Poems From The Adirondack Almanack HERE.

Bent Birches

Icy death’s crystal cocoon
Encases and weighs down every twig and trunk
Relentlessly bending the birches who danced
Through all seasons for all their years
How I hate this brilliant ice palace
No matter to me how it prisms sparkle
The handsome assassin is no less guilty than the hideous

Read More Poems From The Adirondack Almanack HERE.

                                                                      A
TREE

                                                                FOR US TO

                                                        GATHER ROUND, A

                                                    TREE TO KEEP US SAFE

                                          AND SOUND, A TREE TO BRIGHTLY

                                        LIGHT OUR WAY, A TREE TO SHELTER

                                   US EACH DAY, SAVING US FROM WINTER’S

                                 COLD, ITS STORY GLAD AND FOREVER TOLD,

                               GREEN BRANCHES COMFORTING THOUGH WILD

                          BEND LOW TO TOUCH THE NEWBORN CHILD, AS NEAR

                      AND FAR THEY COME TO SEE, THE TINY BABE OF PROPHECY,

                     AS THEY KNEEL FOR A BLESSED TIME IS NEAR, TO FREE US ALL

                 FROM HATE AND FEAR, THE LITTLE CHILD SLEEPS DEEP AND SWEET,

              WHILE BEASTS AND BIRDS SURROUND HIS FEET, AND BANDS OF ANGELS

                                                                     FLY ABOVE,
SINGING OF
ETERNAL LOVE.

Christmas Night

Cold snow won’t whisper the joy it knows
But rather shows the sparkle of its heart
Look
The frigid wind comes
Naked and raging with jealousy
He screams at the evergreens
Rips off their ermine finery
Then leaves to sulk
Ashamed to be the slave of winter,
Then joyous heaven’s sunlight
Twice reflected by moon and snow
Softens nighttime cold
Biding us to walk abroad
Each bearing our inner light
Of Christ

Read More Poems From The Adirondack Almanack HERE.

Harvest

Brown soil is cool and moist in my hands,

Reminding me of who I am,

And of what came before me.

Planting, replenishing, giving back,

Restores me to myself.

This land belongs to everyone,

And no-one,

Though men plant flags to claim dominion.

» Continue Reading.

Sun Will Rise

Beware blind rage that

Panders to fear and leads us all

To murder the light.

Know that when temperate minds prevail…

Sun will rise and babes

Will be born, and what is meant

To be, will still be.

Read More Poems From The Adirondack Almanack HERE.

Leaf Pile

Oh, how good it is to play.

Dumping the bones on a gentle slope
planted in tinted violet, pale pink to rose,
candy corn yellow leaves, as parents stand
by armed with rakes and shovels, observing
with their crotchety independence how good
it must be to be a child again. To be free again,
to see a December sunset cast its ochre-brown,
saddle-shaped, conspicuously veined light,
eyelash like thin, over the gelatinous flesh of a
family’s front yard. Siblings sunken in soil, that
rich manured soil, soon to become melting snow
banks, scattered on rich, brain-shaped humus.

Read More Poems From The Adirondack Almanack HERE.

We Dare

Dare we feel?

This is the time.

Dare we think?

This is the time.

Dare we speak?

This is the time.

» Continue Reading.

That one must still their breath, softly,

Even to notice.

Parading a lushness of bloom,

Riotous tendrils burst and grow anew,

In sparkling diamonds of morning dew,

Reveling in summer’s persistent,

And benevolent façade.

» Continue Reading.