1. In which our hero waxes perambular amid early spring woods.

A cool and blustery March afternoon

along the reaches of the Kennebec,

and Jeremiah is out,

as he is most days,

wandering without purpose or direction

Just a bit outside Norwich

in the east of England,

Sarah lives

in a tiny thatch-roof cottage

on the gentle green banks

of the chalk River Wensum.

Once upon an estuary
herons flew in graceful arcs
that drew great threads
of sunlight through a sky so blue
it almost hurt the eyes.

I used to go there
long ago when afternoons
went on forever.

An olive green car
with a white star on the door
pulls up to the curb,
and right away she knows.
Everyone on her street knows.
It is a time of war
and it is his job
to tell her that the man she loves

is gone.

Am I my brother’s keeper?

Well, let’s have a think about that.

Yeah, so we had a disagreement.

But how are we supposed

to sort things like that out?

God says we will spend eternity
reaping the rewards of our life.
That could be a problem.

Only then the astronomer
says that time began
at the start of the universe,
and will inexorably end
with the universe’s demise.
So that there’s no such thing as eternity.
God bless astronomers.

I imagine that, like all of us,

it needs a break now and then.

It’s a big job, after all,

lighting and warming us all,

growing the veggies and flowers.

And with a family of nine

to look after, not to mention

two hundred-fourteen grandkids.

In a time

of cars and planes,

cell phones and internet,

how to explain to someone

under fifty the wonder

of the singing cowboy?

Hey, I think

that was our turn back there.

This line has languished

in the unseen recesses

of my poetry working folder

for over a decade.

Perception, consciousness, awareness,

the stuff of life

to hear philosophers tell it.

Descartes believed his thoughts

made him real, gave him existence.

But he would say that, wouldn’t he?

The natural world

goes about its business

in ways that humankind,

with its boundless lack of wisdom,

struggles to even label,

much less comprehend.

You first of all will doubtless want to know

why you were never brought into this life.

There is no explanation I can offer,

save that it never seemed the proper time.

The moment is,

at first, way way

out on the horizon,

scarcely discernible.

But gradually doggedly

it creeps toward me,

until at last

it’s only seconds away.

It’s a hidden place.

And in this place

there is a spring,

an opening in the fabric

of normalcy

from which flow

all ideas and stories,

poems and songs and images.

Quite sudden how I came to be here.

One moment basking carefree in the sun,

the next sailing spinning flat and wild,

hurled by the boy’s learned hand.

Now with my journey near its end

all that remains is the slide and the stop,

the infinitesimal pause before

I dip beneath the surface and vanish.

Tomorrow the sun burns the tiniest bit hotter.

The rain falls ever so slightly harder.

The wave washes an inch farther up the sand.

The child has a bit less to eat.

A simple enough assignment.

One picture alone

at the far end

of a distant wing,

obscure, exiled.

Removed from the masters.

So, this title has been sitting on my desk

for about eight years now,

and I still haven’t yet come up with a poem

to go with it.

It’s just that I was really taken

with the image

No lingering bedsore festering demise

for me—not a chance.

Something quick, probably violent,

that will make the mortician

really work for his money.

Something so bizarre, so outrageous

that it will get me on the evening news.