IOWA (Thane & Prose, 2016) is the first of a five-book series that traces the poet’s progress through places of inspiration in an epic fashion. IOWA is about the surfeit and dearth of rural living; a celebration of green fields, the family farm and small town life. The second book in the series is HAMPTONS (2019), followed by NEW YORK (2022), PARIS and ROME.
Wild Animals
​
The waking have one world in common.
Sleepers meanwhile turn aside,
each into a darkness of their own.
-Heraclitus
​
I asked my father if he
was afraid to walk at night
alone. “There’s nothing there
but your imagination.”
What about wild animals?
“They’re more afraid of you
than you of them, but if
one comes close, get away
in case they’re sick and bite.”
​
​
The Beginning
​
I stand in a field and listen to wind
become water on my skin,
no words, just hawks in the sky,
wasps in the swing set.
The corncrib swells with rock hard
cobs of multicolored grain,
a bull snake coils around my leg,
I step from its boot-like grip.
A field is an ocean of green leaves,
the wind waves on my skin.
​
​
Cornfield
​
Emerald waves applaud midsummer’s
undulant hills, honeyed kernels,
amber tasseled stalks inert,
wind-wisped leaves stir earth’s aroma,
slow circling suspensions of time,
dust blown cloud, adagio of air,
granular infinitudes above
a gravel road, long grassy ditch lined
with barbed wire going nowhere.