Moving House Poems

"In one generation both court and city change–
be assured, that's no idle saying.
Man's life is a phantom affair,
and he returns at last to the empty void." – Tao Yuan-ming, "Returning to My Home in the Country, No. 4"











Could my days be like any others?
I flip up the screen of my computer
and click away for hours at papers and tasks;
but those are nothing more than wasted hours.
Outside the windows on fine fall days
there is a dream of autumn colors stirring;
I put the dog in the back and we drive
to Lake Mendota at the peninsula path.
Here the people are so outnumbered by golden leaves;
we find ourselves along a cove,
two foot waves spraying up along the ancient limestone;
a hollow of yellow maples and birch
stands like a stage of theatric beauty –
who needs the false contours of screens?
We run by old vestiges of hundred year old farm.
An apple orchard here built up into a shallow hillside,
horses for carriage and work, children at lessons.
Inside the mind of every man
is the old farmer standing over the produce
of the spring tilled land and secretly
in love with this world rotating a sun.