Great God, I ask for no meaner pelf
Than that I may not disappoint myself,
That in my action I may soar as high
As I can now discern with this clear eye.

And next in value, which thy kindness lends,
That I may greatly disappoint my friends,
Howe’er they think or hope that it may be,
They may not dream how thou’st distinguished me.

That my weak hand may equal my firm faith
And my life practice what my tongue saith
That my low conduct may not show
Nor my relenting lines
That I thy purpose did not know
Or overrated thy designs.

(1841)

Universal spirit, O hear my urgent plea
For nothing less or more than plain integrity
That I may carry out in deed what in my mind I know
Is true but never comfortable, and find new ways to grow.

And if it is required to abandon obligation
And spend more solitary time in quiet contemplation
Then give me strength and confidence to follow my own light
And cut loose from the need to be approved in others’ sight.

Please let me saunter off with you, really walk the walk
Instead of giving yet another classroom Thoreau talk.
Let it not be that making do will win out finally,
That I cant find a way to write and testify,
That what was learned so long ago stays merely memory
Some idealist delusion better left to die.

Gently wafting Knoll House breeze
Stirs the firs and arbutus trees
That frame the watery passage I see
Between the mainland and Savary
From the deck six hundred feet up
Where a fritillary flits by my coffee cup.

Speedboats enter from each side
Gash parallel lines before they hide
Behind green curtains lost from view
Their white paths fading back to blue.
Horizon clouds disperse to show
The glacial glare off Forbidden Plateau.

A loud leaf scrapes the greying shakes
Above soft sounds that birdsong makes.
The sun radiates my soles with heat
And puffs of wind aircool my feet.
Whiffs of fragrance richly vary
Shalal, peat, and huckleberry.

Writing makes my observation
Slow motion, line’s permutation.
Dancing fingers lead the pen
Across the empty pages, then
Leave a snail-paced slimey trail
Wormy castings endless tale.

Broken off by–of all things–
Yellow belly-throat, black wings
Crimson crown–an Oriole
Visiting this blessed Knoll.

August 1998

One day and inches from this world
A presence greater
Than all things real
Yet tentative, unknown.
Boy or girl
Will it survive the passage?

Swelling incertitude burst
By the ringing phone
And grandmother’s cry:
“He’s here, born 8:05
Abel Henry Marx.”

Expired questions
Your life the answer
And to what new questions
Now that waiting is over?

August 23 2006

Fossils in rock
Footprints in sand
Paths in a chamber of cloud.

Awakening in darkness
I’m welcomed by the night
To a resplendent roofless hall
Too grand for my poor sight.

The handle of the dipper
Goes swiveling overhead
A warm wind gusts across my face
And grasses sweep my bed.

The silence of the valley
Breaks with a coyote’s sound
That’s followed by responses
From all the hills around.

The stars look down from heaven
The owl gives a hoot
The earth supports my body
My pillow is my boot.

###

(originally appeared in Cal Poly Land: A Field Guide, sketch by Anna Chaffin)

John Milton, Paradise Lost: 7: 309-338 [copied and imitated from Genesis 1-2]

Let th’ Earth
Put forth the verdant Grass, Herb yeilding Seed,
And Fruit Tree yeilding Fruit after her kind;
Whose Seed is in her self upon the Earth.
He scarce had said, when the bare Earth, till then
Desert and bare, unsightly, unadorn’d,
Brought forth the tender Grass, whose verdure clad
Her Universal Face with pleasant green,
Then Herbs of every leaf, that sudden flour’d
Op’ning thir various colours, and made gay
Her bosom smelling sweet: and these scarce blown,
Forth flourish’t thick the clustring Vine, forth crept
The swelling Gourd, up stood the cornie Reed
Embattell’d in her field: add the humble Shrub,
And Bush with frizl’d hair implicit: last
Rose as in Dance the stately Trees, and spred
Thir branches hung with copious Fruit; or gemm’d
Thir Blossoms: with high Woods the Hills were crownd,
With tufts the vallies & each fountain side,
With borders long the Rivers.

Steven Marx, “April the First”

The Spring god talked the green world into being.
She said to earth, “Push up the verdant grasses
And all the vegetation bearing seed
The fruit trees yielding their own distinct fruits
To hold and spread the seeds of progeny.”
And earth no sooner heard, still bleak and bare,
But that her crust burst forth with tender Grass
That softened to a face of smiling green,
And then with broad-leafed herbs that sudden bloomed
To dress her breast in luscious colored flowers
And fragrance sweet. And still more growth,
The lengthy vines emerged and soon grew thick
Swelling with squash and pumpkin. Ranks of grain
Sprang up in fields and shrubby chapparel
Sprouted impen’trable thickets. Climaxing
Above this growth, majestic trees rose up
Reached out their overarching limbs adroop
With fruits and flowers, and crowned in groves
The hills, gave shade to springs riparian,
And bordered watercourses.

The golden rings you’ve just exchanged and wear
As binding links of interlocking vow
Made with free choice impalpable as air
Enclose the undetermined future now.
The two of you together cleave as one
To fill the gap between the worlds in space
Between the pleasure and what should be done
Between the gruesome times and times of grace.
You leave behind the families of your birth
To recreate the world as best you can
With children, home and projects of true worth
The newly chartered firm of Chris and Ann.
May it prosper through what fortune brings
As have these redwood sempervirens rings.

I cant remember quite when
I decided to dress and go out
Not feeling ready or strong
Just bored enough for the risk.

It must have been the moment
Some furious battle tilted
Between invaders and guards
Endurance turning to hope.

I made it around the block
Slow as old folks in the park
Who step to keep from falling
And stop to catch their breath

To sense movement and rest
A breeze stroking the lips
To squint at fluttering leaves
And the radiant blue of air

Like a kid on shaky legs
Licked, sponging up life.
Recovery is a miracle,
But father will you arise?

October 31 1996

“You cannot call it love, for at your age,
The heyday of the blood is tame,” said he–
An ignorant child who never could presage
What nature’s secret of love’s growth would be.
No less than air or food or sun’s warm ray
Your sound, your smell, your taste, your touch, your sight
Still animate, sustain and calm the clay
That sinks into my mattress every night.
No less the rose of dawn, the bloom of spring
For being welcomed yet another time.
Appreciation of a precious thing
Accumulates before it turns sublime;
Even in depletion, more entire
And poignant, knowing soon it must expire.

Published in A Fine Frenzy:Poets Respond to Shakespeare p.98

Full five and twenty years ago
At age of twenty five
I stood with you under a tree
Making a vow to strive

Through poverty, wealth, illness and health
To keep our young love alive
In the midst of utter uncertainty
Declaring it would survive.

The howling storms of time passing
That through its limbs did drive
Compressed and twisted and darkened it
And forced it to strengthen and thrive

Till today in this city of lovers
We’ve exchanged the whole half of our lives
Like wood become coal and then diamond
Our pledge’s fulfillment arrives.

1992

Paddling bow in Penobscot Bay,
I heard the Tripping Captain
say across the water
to my counselor paddling stern,
“Six months after the wedding
your wife’s ass
feels just like your own.”
His words broke the shell
of my vast virgin ignorance
and echoed in starlight.

This Wednesday morning in April
I bring coffee to the bed
we’ve slept in for twenty five years
and reach under the covers.
Smiling, you slap my hand.

Elegy for Eric (1962-1985)

Now closer creep the shadows of the trees
The pasture’s morning mist makes squash leaves freeze.
The house without a fire’s a chilling place
Forsaken of the summer’s hot embrace.

A dullness weights the limbs, fatigues the mind
Acts fail, words trail, thoughts snap, ears seal, eyes blind
Alone sleep offers rest from fear and pain
But nightmares waken torments once again.

Bottomless and void, bereft of light
The sea has robbed us of a spirit bright
A man-child at the verge of fatherhood
Innocently searching for the good.

He dove below his depth alone for love
And left alone his loved ones here above
His friends, parents, lady and child-to-be
His boats, barn, his plans to farm the sea.

Without him we grow old before our time
But in our hearts he stays in youthful prime.
So let us gather now in deepening night
And sharing sorrow, kindle warmth and light.

*

The trees are there
when talking stops.
They wait
for the runner.

*

Love is whatever you make it
Just like the song that I sing
A cage or a perfect circle
This golden wedding ring.

We made a vow in a garden
Twelve years ago today
To build our lives in common
To link arms on our way.

Now look back on that moment
Where once the seal was set
And see our path returning
To the place where we first met.

We’ve lived in the big bad city
We’ve moved out on the land
But location no longer matters
It’s where we are we stand.

We blasted through the sixties
A searchin’ to be free
Came down to earth in the seventies
Accepting the limits of “me.”

And everything we wanted
And everything we tried
Has come and gone in the rushing stream
Has flourished and withered and died.

Except for one thing only
That stands against the flow
That time, instead of eroding,
Has strengthened and helped to grow.

And that’s what always is April
The moment under the tree
The love that we make together
The source of our family.

Palo Alto, April 2 1979