From 1990-91

Old Cat

Old cat
You’ve stuck it out
living to be
gerontologically obese
for our humor.
Old enough to be
on a feline
maintenance diet
with no indiscretionary
feeding from the table.
There are places here
that are your sacred
resting grounds,
nobody else—kid or beast
enter these domains.
You make your rounds
at night ritually
sleeping with each child
then with me.
Old cats seem
pretty happy
all in all.
This one lies
just now on
this page and
rests his paws
on my pen.
A rusty purr
explodes in gusts.
So old man,
you write poetry!


To Edwin

All this talk of death
casually spoken
plans are set,
but what I mean is
I mustn’t be left,
you must not leave me
now when the world
is turning upside down.
You have had your share
of life, I know
and I have so much to do.
You want to die
I can tell—but why?
To correct God’s grammar
When you get there?
I’m the one that needs it.


To Joseph Campbell

Would you have ever thought
to be happy for who you are?
Is it the ultimate in
narcissistic egotism?
Or pushing off the edge of sanity?
Saying yes, yes, yes
to all that’s horrid.
To finally know what
my place is in the world
in the beautiful transcendence,
the believable corn.
It’s possible to
make oneself the
un-stranger
in a strange land,
Yes, yes, yes.
I am the strange
and world you need me
different though we are
and I need you, yes.
Though you will never
understand me, yes, yes
I am happy
for who I am.
I dream, I speak
through spirit to spirit
through space and time
I will do the dreaming
you will enact it.
Babies will still smile
in all the catastrophes
to come, yes.

Angels Bending Near the Earth

Cracking the veil
from this world to the next
ease the body as it goes,
not death but metamorphosis,
blue skies from now on.
The color blue is infinite,
the sky this color
for spiritual reasons
as well as physical ones.
Blue is a holy color
remember how much blue
is in early renaissance painting.
Nothing in the physical nature
is by accident
even royal Violet’s
gray fur with its silver sheen
is an indication of her royalty.
The bumble bee’s stripes
are for contemplation and humor
as well as a distraction
away from the queen bee.
Continue to give
all your burdens to us,
morning, noon, and night,
like blessings at mealtime,
it’s remembering a link,
accepting with gratitude
the miracles of every day.
Accept the flow of bounty
through the body and through life.