late november night

dark limbs   branches   twigs
serpents against cloud-gray skies
primordial fear

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© Gregory V Driscoll  2014

a new grammar

I fear I’m going loco
for I see persons   places   things
and finding you in their beauty
try to make them into pronouns for you
this maple for example which will soon
sound its symphony of buds   of branches
swaying    of birds assembling nests –
this I call “You flourishing”
and this night sky arching over
earth   sea    naked save for those small jewels –
this I call “You dreaming”   and this
young woman drawing near me now
with her smile made of sun and clouds
her eyes of dark fragrant sherry –
she I name – my heavens – she is
you
you  my love

well   yes this proves it for certain
I am going bonkers

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© Gregory V Driscoll  2014

Canto vernal – Song of Spring

When I don’t sense you, I become
a tree in the midst of the desert –
without water, leafless, forsaken.
In my branches, the sap turns to stone.
My root shrivels.  I age so much
that I’m but bark and dry wood
fit only for worms or the fire.
But when you return, bird of my Spring,
you fill me with life, with song.
You touch me and I bear fruit.
Because of you I’m crowned with life.

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© Gregory V Driscoll  2013

Haiku

the red maple’s leaves
arrayed in ermine   snow’s weight
makes branches plié

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(c) Gregory V Driscoll  2012

Query on the last night of the year

Blossom of night, what manner of fruit
is of your dumb begetting?
Foul vapors of the spirit to mar
the visage of the newborn day?
Or splendid jewels of thought’s sweet dew,
to catch the light of the morrow’s morn?

All is silence, except for straggler leaves
stirring among the sullen branches
or skittering across the cold ground.

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(c) Gregory V Driscoll  2011

A memory while recuperating

on foot in the early morning, before dawn…
walking through the mist – a revelation,
in many ways, but first in this:
I see the ground is wet only beneath the trees.
the materialization of a concept: precipitation,
the mist condensing on the leaves, the drops coalescing,
running down the twigs, the branches, the trunk,
leaping directly from the leaves to the pavement –
a parallel with the dew condensing on my face, my bare arms,
my legs bare below my khaki shorts;
dripping from my hair, mixing with the sweat
streaming from my aging body
onto bare, desiccated ground.
I feel ancient and sprightly as the trees.

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(c) Gregory V Driscoll  2011