Sample Poems

Wedding Poems

Taken In By Sunrise

Once again they take the dirt road to Hawksbill,
the roadsides lit with goldenrod, everything tipped
on the end of summer. This drive, the climb itself

now a ritual. And to think Hawksbill was always there,
jutting out over all those days before they met –
before the smallest of choices that led to their meeting,

before Al cooking in the back, Vanessa up front
waiting tables, before the first meal he cooked for her,
before their first breathless laugh, before that first high-five,

before the snuggles, before Amelia and Waffles tugged them
along on their leashes, their walks in winter, the pines black
against the rust-colored mountains, before I love you and things,

Hawksbill was there somewhere in the distance,
a presence, an anchor they were unknowingly tethered to,
jutting out over those days before their first hike,

before I love you and stuff, before the house coming
together around them, the hammering from within,
before their trip to Africa, before she said yes,

before the sunrise hike, the arrival at the trailhead
in darkness, before those opening chords
of their wedding song, before the hot cocoa and Bailey’s,

before he first saw her in her wedding dress
on this very mountaintop –
Hawksbill was there, a recognition of something

they already knew and remembered by climbing.
They will stand again at the craggy summit, sit dangling
Their legs from the jagged cliffs as they catch their breath.

They have no idea what the years will bring.
But they have their story. They have made promises here,
this mountain their witness. That is enough.

They can always find their way back. Maybe this time
Linville Gorge will be full of fog, the river invisible
as it cuts deep through the canyon. Maybe the far

ranges will seem more ghost than mountain.
Maybe they will get to see those few forgotten stars
moments before they are taken in by sunrise.

They Shine On and On

Autumn Equinox, 2021

If ever only the island knew,
if ever there was a time they only just met
stepping stones out into Fresh Pond,

low branches lapped by their wake,
sun sinking over those far fields 
where the horses go some nights.

If ever there were years they were lost
and the island went searching for them,
if ever they passed each other driving

on winter roads, if ever heart-shaped 
rocks appeared at their feet,
ever years the island kept their story

in its thicket-deep wild roses.
If they were ever here, 
they are always here.

If ever the island then found them,
found them like stepping stones.
If ever September, the Equinox,

ever the day’s light stretching
to contain them, ever a white dress
on a windswept beach, ever 

a harmonium playing Shining Star,
ever gulls flying off 
in each of the cardinal directions.

If ever a new island, 
moonlight on its cliffs.
Ever the shingles turning grey,

the house coming together around them,
becoming them as they sleep. 
Ever their gardens deepen.

If ever the slam of the door,
Maeve’s footsteps on the stairs,
ever her smile at coming home.

For her, ever a bridge 
to come home, ever a bridge
to leave, ever an island girl.

If ever you see them, the salt 
of the seas they will someday sail 
is already drying on their arms,

ever the ancient streets they already walk 
in their dreams, ever blankets
laid out for them in faraway orchards.

---

Dutch Hill, Heartwellville, Vermont

Summer again and the beams of our cabin
swell with humidity. We lie beneath
summer blankets wondering whose hands

raised each log, shouldered them into place.
Our breaths rise and mingle in the rafters.
Here the sunset comes through the trees 

like chords held down, chords held until
they fade completely. We stoke sparks 
from the fire pit with our sticks. 

Far down the ravines tumble away 
in an unfurling of ferns, the trunks
of birch bright in the gloaming.

Let our hearts always be this well, be
this evergreen. Let us always remember
the afternoon we sled down the driveway,

such laughter, during that hardest of winters,
that quiet ache of a year. The sled smoothed
over our steps as we pulled it back up the hill.

Let us cling together as the years go by,
let there always be this climb, this red door,
this thawing of the mountain streams.

Let the smoke of our fires be a signal 
to those on the far ridgeline that we are here, 
that we are held by this place, that we meet

each evening beneath a canopy of pines.
Summer again and it is as if the mountain 
has imagined us here, on this day, hands clasped,

just as the mountain imagines everything – 
fern, lavender, birch, frost –
that blooms.

---

Charleston, 2020

This city’s beauty was our beginning.
The Cistern, live oaks swaying with chandeliers,
candlelight and the blur of Spanish moss,

resurrection fern unfurling up the branches.
We met beside a fountain, wandered cobblestone
alleys ripe with tea olive, laid in the sun on

ancient rooftops. We came back to each other
as we come back to this place and find it unchanged –
still the lanterns are lit in these mansions by the sea.

We walk by them at night and they glow from deep
within, their secret gardens black-green and dripping,
studded with fireflies. Still the two rivers join here,

on their way to sea, already tidal, already salt.
All these years. We walk again to this point –
neither river nor sea. Anchor of our beginning.

Behind us the steepled air, the bells about to ring.

---

Indiana (Wedding Poem)

We bike past greenhouses where white
Strawberries, in the dark, will grow red.
The house has eyes to see us with and

The fields lay themselves open to freedoms
Upon freedoms of purple clover. Behind me,
The chains sing past your dark ankles.

Love, we are no different from the myths.
Bare-chested, you lift your hands from
The handlebars, stretch your arms away

And sail across the asphalt.  You direct
The wind down the glossy corridors of corn
That lead to everywhere. And so,

Down the centuries, I will come to you
From behind a wine-red gate
And tell you what  I’ve seen –

If the lilies have grown pale in the fashion of
The forest’s edge, if the newspapers are extinct,
If the first mirror is unearthed

And the dirt pushed off –
If it is possible to love you there, I will come
To you down some golden-celled corridor –

I will come back to love you again and again
By this tree, at this hour,
In this blush of invisible shipwrecks.

---

Epithalamion

You and I can never be strangers again.
If I stand under this tree and you shake
Its branches, other petals would fall.

The tree grows fat around our carving
And the moon is not ash, is not
A blow-away. The stone walls crumble,

Sink, are taken away by vines yet always
Look the same. When I close my eyes,
I cannot imagine your hands but there

Is the grass hill we ran down in the rain
Toward the Hartford skyline. Listen,
There are atmospheres thick as jewels

We will have to swim up through
To glimpse this kindling.

---

Wedding Poem

It’s every century –
            a boy puts his bare foot
in the dry grass as he steps to throw,

a girl reaches her arms
            into the blue to catch it,
the humidity a loud whisper

between the branches.
            And they talk about missing seagulls –
love is knowing what the other loves.

And maybe they are only the movie projection
            reflection of stars,
a flickering on the grass,

Deserted farmhouses ringing the dinner bells.
            Either way, someone is imagining
them together. In every century

An old car drives away from them,
            some raspy doo-wop, doo-wop
wafting in and out of its radio’s reception

As it steers down a road through the cornfields,
            parting the mirages
that rise from the asphalt.

---

(This very short wedding poem appeared in my first book. There’s an old wedding tradition of the bride wearing a veil that’s so fine it can be pulled through the groom’s ring.)

---

Samples of (nonwedding) poems in literary journals

Boston Review: “Road Rising Into Deep Grass”

Beloit Poetry Journal: “This Is How You Must Leave”, “But For This Passage Touched By Nothing”, “Where Once Deer Have Slept”

AGNI: “I Try to Hear the Island Disappearing”

Rattle: “Hitch-hiking”

Ecotone: “Little Girl Buried in a Keg of Rum”

The Mackinac: “A Straight Sinking of Multiple Rocks,” “Ghazal of the Ferry,” “Off Season”

See my full publication history here.