The Beaufort Scale
How to know what’s coming? (Though, of course,
we always did.) The trees, uprooted, lay
on their sides, their tiny nests, so long hidden
from our peeping and peering, broken and scattered.
The four winds, like poker players after a long
night, are clumsy and bitter, but for the one,
quiet, almost forgetful, his pockets heavy,
driving, driving, your crumpled address in there
somewhere, and steering, as he tends to, poorly.
first published in the New Statesman, 21-27 March 2025
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SOME OTHER POEMS & ESSAYS
American Journal of Poetry: Aguacero
Common-place - (poem and essay): My Father in the New World
The Gladdest Thing: Five Poems
Image: Billy the Kid, & Prayer at Evening, & The Present
New Statesman: Schrodinger's Cab, & Lima, Ohio; 1933
On the Sea Wall: 3 versions by Claribel Alegría; 3 versions by Marina Tsvetaeva; 1 version by Miguel Hernández
Plume:
Poems: On Painting the Sistine Chapel: Michelangelo to Giovanni Da Pistoia & Ophelia.
Essays: An Eye Out for the Reader;
On Anthony Hecht’s “A Birthday Poem”
Poem: Bring Me the Sunflower - after Montale
Shenandoah (essay & poem): Why You Shouldn't Let Your Grown Children Move Back Home - On Hamlet, Yorick, Fortinbras and God; The Odds
Southern Review (essay and poem): Long Distance, & The Infinite
