GREETINGS
—B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA
Greetings water,
good day, stone
welcome sun
stretched out
along the shore's
first light's pitch
Sing at noon
in a bird choir
of sea voices
shadows hide
dunes reflection
by consummate
cloudy waves
along dark waters
Listen night
to the spring
unfolding shade
in dewy presence
of unmuffled
shade of trees
Expect mountains
by the reefs
to soften your steps
on earth's
many spaces
into absence of day
noon and night
on common grounds
of fragrant secrets.
_______________
AT THE CAPE
—B.Z. Niditch
Here at the Cape
on the cove
once filled
with night music
over a deck
sprayed by gulls
and graffiti
a passerby
savoring of pines
in a windbreaker
with an orange kite
hides from the rain
crawls down
over the dunes
to a muddied shore
filled with sand castles
stopping at the gazebo
on the right
in a region of falcons
the opposite
of current intention
and all is changed
disregarded, glowing
with a wayward sun
stetched out
suddenly consumed
from first light
of many returns.
_______________
NOBODY LANDS
—B.Z. Niditch
Sea voices
shadow domes of elms
along flooded rivers
on nobody lands,
too early for dawn's
escape
perched under the sun
on the last isle,
as bird flight and song
cover a landscape's
fluting
opening a map's voyage
to unknown memory,
here with intense fruit
wrapped in berry boxes
on long picnic tables
gathers for its guests
as fibrillating rays wash
on the windward Cape
between sky and dawn
crossing our leafy eyes
on tall wild grass
by dunes
and ditch water sands
of a greensward shore,
far away from everything
except for the glitter
of a deaf time
in all its Fall disguises
taking leaves by shade
in a morning blush
of reddened visibility
from mirrors of nature's
unexpected recognition.
_______________
ON THE RIVER BED
—B.Z. Niditch
Refusing to fear
any living waters
or to be among
the spring flood's
silent and nameless
on clumsy dunes,
tares and high weeds
as the unsteady creek
full of infinite rain
moves landward
my throat rusted
as any oral poet
reciting by branches
by warbled birds.
Soon my venture
beyond the shore
along home harbor
drifts my boat
over the restless floor
with a wish to halt
the outspoken waves
from a fistful
of daylight winds
in shadowed jauntiness
by a fiery tide
on the river bed.
_______________
ALONG MARSHES
—B.Z. Niditch
Wreck of a lost boat
from naive green reefs
narrowing waves
along marshes,
dawn walks
to lighten the earth
near dunes
on tall grassland
no absence
of the sun
or open questions
only unseen moments
of silhouette mirrors
under the jelly fish sea.
_______________
LANDSCAPE
—B.Z. Niditch
We are a landscape
like you
with roots and veins
something in the elm
covers warmth's
first light,
a labyrinth sun
circles armloads
of sky birds
sounding over
wood winds
deafening the trees,
and a poet
on tall grasses
leaves bicycle
and backpack
near the dunes
slipping near limbs
to yard-arm nature.
_______________
WHY, NIGHT
—B.Z. Niditch
Why, night
at the window
when dream saps
our messages
and arouses
an airy strange space
suddenly to birth us
and the pale moon
cannot locate
or answer
any painful sign
warning or revelation
except for the wind
transmuted to candles
over iocal shadows
by flooded light
covering at the foot
of fragmented Iris.
_______________
BECAUSE THE NIGHT
—B.Z. Niditch
Because the night
expects morning
for a day break
and a pitch piped
bird calls on us
for bread
we rush out
in the grey dawn
at a cool air moment
to yard-arm nature
watering the grass
of our own shelter.
_______________
Today's LittleNip:
The scent of plums
On a mountain path
Suddenly dawn
—Basho
_______________
—Medusa
