Salamander Rain

These warm, rainy nights of young spring,
salamanders begin crossing the road to water
and woods not so far away but
a dangerous journey, and I with flashlight
play Virgil taking them to a Paradiso.

For years, I have volunteered for the endangered species program in New Jersey, so I have seen the amphibians – endangered, threatened, or just in danger – crossing locally to vernal pools of water. Dangerous road crossings. See some salamander rain video and more info at endangerednj.blogspot.com
Seeing myself as Dante’s Virgil guide and my local woods as a paradiso may be a bit of poetic license but…

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Cemetery With Snow

Snow has melted and left my home,
but here farther north it still fell
last night on this cemetery I visited
though I know no one buried here,
at least I don’t think I know

anyone here beneath the cold, fresh white.
A blanket is the cliche. Wrap. Shroud.
Some flat gravestones are covered, now anonymous.
Some old ones still standing are illegible.
Also anonymous. I feel I should pray

for these people but if they had
souls wouldn’t they have gone elsewhere?
I think I’m praying for my family
and friends gone and buried elsewhere and
for myself imagining others walking above me

dead or me dead above those walking
below through a cemetery once live green,
covered with snow and I am hoping –
not praying – that they will be praying
for me, for my soul, here, elsewhere.

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In My Fever

I awaken to sunset’s orange glow approaching,
or perhaps it is sunrise battling clouds.
Is that window the East or West?
Without my eyeglasses, the desk lamp glows
like the Sun, but it feels night.

The clock hands say seven without AM/PM
and my brain cannot sense time or
whether I am right side up or
adrift at sea, waves lift and fall,
my head hot and my feet cold.

I scribbled some notes when I woke up and felt like my fever had lifted. The notes didn’t make much sense but I did recall the confusion about time and the feeling that I was at sea.

A few days later, I was flipping through a poetry anthology and came upon “The Walrus and the Carpenter” by Lewis Carroll and these lines seemed just right.

The sun was shining on the sea,
Shining with all his might:
He did his very best to make
The billows smooth and bright —
And this was odd, because it was
The middle of the night.

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A Library Romance

I’m remembering today our first chance encounter
in the university literature stacks, she sitting
on the floor, cross-legged, reading a book
(later I would learn was a critical
study of Salinger, who I was writing

about) how when I stepped past her
and looked down, she looked up, and
like some scene from one of our
mutually studied novels, there was a connection
and then, somehow, we’re outside in darkness,

the campus in its full October autumn,
cigarettes, coffee, walking her to her apartment,
and that tenuous kiss, and a promise
to meet her again the next day,
and the next day and again the next day.