could be I’m tired
or lost, but to close my eyes
and nod off
while the world goes on
gives me a certain peace
/
/
wind outside the mall
and as I wait
with my eyes closed
a killdeer calls
from another life
/
as I sit here
taking in the river view
I see my feelings for this life
quite like the trees
leaning slightly downstream
how ironic
coming to love
this life and world
and at the same time
letting it go
while planting bulbs
my wife unearths
a childhood cap gun of mine
I hold it
trying to grasp back then
scribbling,
that’s it,
what I do, and tell
the inquisitive stranger
who asks
what attracted me most
to the poem
had not so much to do
with the poem
but that she liked it
I asked him about his day
what he did
if he got enough sleep
and in response
a soulful look and purring
with thunder very close
our little dog
gets under my legs,
if only I could feel
so safe with myself
another ball game
and she wonders why
I’m so taken by the win and lose
as if our lives were
nothing like that
on the trail to the top
my family hikes best
during the time
they combine
to make light of me
my beer gone flat
but out of duty
I finish it–
living all these
middle-aged days
just when I was feeling
there is always
too much to do,
Cassiopeia so sharp
in the autumn night sky
by spontaneous consent
our subtle flirting
has played itself out-
our friendship will be all
the better for this
we work briskly
into the momentum of the day
a long list of what to do,
once all there was
was to fall in love
in the company of friends
our marriage takes on
an air of comfort
as we all attend to things
other than ourselves
it is love we all want
and all these ways
we go about getting it-
how strange in my secluded spot
a stranger finds me
pushed by the wind
at the far end of the sky
a few clouds…
I can see what I want
keeps changing too
ambivalence
I believe is what
I’ve come to sitting here
watching wave after wave
land itself
full of rain
the river races along
past everything here–
I can’t shake this sense
I’m living on borrowed time
watching
the smooth flow of water
over stones . .
how few of my thoughts
are new
beyond this life
that one old friend
I bump into over and over
promising that we’ll get together
again, someday
this complete enigma
of me wanting more solitude
then company in turn
on my terms
at just the right time
wondering if this is what
my parents felt,
in their own time
seeing a better past slip
ever further behind
all these years
in one house, one job
one town and in me―
too many changes to fathom
as I sweep away autumn leaves
those two birds flying
so close together
swiftly across the twilight sky―
a certain happy sad witness
I provide for them . . .
that point
in the evening
when both cats are in place
quietly bathing
while I read . . .
without fanfare
I drag the dead branch
to the brush pile
another day risen
and fallen from my life
for ten years
we’ve come to this lake
for vacation—
in the camera this year
your smile a little less
at the old parking lot
the sparrows bathe
in a big puddle
sometimes I’m so happy
just to be here as witness
between chores
I study my hands
as if they might hold
something
I should know
to show me
the spirit of a train
I wish for one to come―
these overgrown tracks
I walk along
I keep it ambiguous
knowing full well
a defined reason
for feeling down
can be dismissed
the envelope to me
sealed carefully with tape
on every seam
when opened, reveals
absolutely nothing
my youth spent
gathering strength and solace
of friends near and far–
these short years later
losing them one by one
tom clausen 