Robert Lietz


                   THE FRAYING               

     Mid-September’s the cold sort, or cool, clouded,
damp, so the hummingbird’s convinced
by southern endorsements, and five open windows
around the porch almost convince me, 
the shorts and polos go so far, a knowledge I know
to celebrate.  The coffee’s cold before I finish it 
and seek the pot indoors, a changing line of thought, 
proximity and promise, fending to find 
ways through, as two, off in some poetry or stitch-work, 
share their day apart, while the GOP, posing 
gangster-minded quarrels with the country, means 
to take a bite of it, exposing its own 
and meaner versions of protection, against the Obama 
healing, the Obama budget for the next decade, 
next month, next week and the next meal, since 
we need it, when whole families poach 
or fall on mercy to get over, murdered spiritually, and 
dismissed to chores, as tea-spirits 
describe them, saved to themselves, to that tea-party’s
sated and severe morality.   Our afternoon’s 
spent weather-stripping, on replacement locks, dead-bolts, 
reconditioning a house in village woods 
you’d have to work to lose your way in, hearing these
mauve, scarlet, sun-drop and pale deck-flowers
chatting up retirements, until the rain’s about begun, 
the fraying a land’s embraced and its correcting,
as if this were tomorrow, yesterday, only the weather 
in upper limbs announcing it, or the field-mouse, 
mole, the smallish woods-rat, that flickering mower-scared
self scampering through ground-cover, to the yard’s
east edge, where the spring buck cut from woods 
to woods across the drive-stones, and left us braking 
there, making our peace with that, then leaving 
on our store-runs, looking for parts to seed another 
afternoon’s upgrading, with an hour or so 
of light to trim, to have at the tomatoes, impressed 
to serve a mid-September recipe.



                   NIJINSKY

     How the secrets, kept safe, and pampering felt some days,
the marketing, because the rituals could fool you, waiting 
on line to get your hands on the promotions, or hearing the fans’ 
squeal, the volume and tenor of a place, of a lifetime’s 
promises.  What didn’t we agree to then as restitution?  And, all 
at once, the rubied hummingbird’s hovering, like a maharajah’s 
child, and hovering must suffice, a gift of concentration, brightening 
again with pumpkins filling out to marvel, weeks as they are 
from Halloween and carving, so it’s easy to think a boy amazed 
by all of it, and, not quite two, thinking back to last year’s first 
and his first tour around the garden, with the pictures and poems
to prove him right remembering, in some far tomorrow say,
with a poem like this despite a shyness, an awkwardness at speech
I’ve spent a lifetime working over, like the sports, no less, 
I never played decidedly, sure there’d be games again, and, season 
by season, play, cheering the heart beyond the late game-ending
innings, overtimes, beyond the season’s ends, and a more playful turbulence, 
made light by its own power.  Call it a plan 
or fundamental balance worth inflecting, against some lethal 
thoughtlessness, the disappointments that keep us up, 
witnessing, correcting the joy we let become a joy for real, become
a sea-large, sky-large scalloped place I’ve saved the map to, at 
once and everywhere, as coveted and comely and uncircumscribed 
as knowledge is, and as distinction gets, in the wilder blooms 
of its perfecting, subscribed to the secrets, discipline, and kept safe,
though, surely, I misremember it, like an oaf infatuated 
by Nijinsky fantasized, or, finding the common interest, shared, by 
the reference, fantasy, the turn of mind, so you cannot mistake 
the family, supposing a kindred influence, and how some other inspired 
coincidence or animation enters a village solitude 
or a perspective, after the train’s moved through, muffled a little 
by the blocks, by the hills between the train and dreamer, 
and the silence, say, half a morning’s worth, crossing 
by crossing, rediscovered, finding its own, if less 
     than graceful, grace again.



                  PROPERTIES

     What if we let words get to us, to share 
in our season’s work and interests?
What’s to suppose because of it, besides 
the experience, when 
the morning’s poem or weather’s undecided 
by star-dark, and we attend 
that theater, thirst, and the next day’s sky, 
frisked tangibly, blue rags and puffs 
become a source we’re grateful for, when 
systems steer away, more serious, 
maybe, or undecided still, even in their going, 
but leaving the house and woods around 
resolved to our intentions, so that these few 
degrees, we think, go a long way
toward comfortable, and the birds agree, posting 
among the vine tangles, the clustering 
goldenrod the wind-dismantled woods 
seem to have encouraged, 
as the finches, the cardinals relocate their brunch
and bird-serious bravado, debating 
candidates, maybe, or occupying, squatting, 
defending claims on property,
or waving the summer off, this concentration 
you think cannot admit to its 
dismissal.  Surely we’ve learned this much, 
and understand the stillness at the feeder’s 
a hawk’s doing, maybe the same that menaced 
the air above our yard, an hour 
earlier, sampling the yard-view. from limb 
or roof-shingle or hawk glide, 
whether I’ve figured anything, if not 
the light before the light, 
after the rain this afternoon, 
the fullness another day  
     delivers on.

Robert Lietz's poems have appeared in more than one hundred journals, including Agni Review, Antioch Review, Carolina Quarterly, The Colorado Review, Epoch, The Georgia Review, Mid-American Review, The Missouri Review, The North American Review, The Ontario Review, Poetry, and Shenandoah. Eight collections of poems have been published, including Running in Place, At Park and East Division, The Lindbergh Half-century (L’Epervier Press,) The Inheritance (Sandhills Press,) and Storm Service and After Business in the West: New and Selected Poems (Basal Books.) Besides the print publications poems have appeared in several webzines. A net search for "Robert Lietz poetry" will provide a representative selection. In addition, Lietz spends a good deal of time taking, post-processing, and printing photographs he has been making for the past several years, examining the relationship between the image-making and the poems he has made and is exploring.

 
 

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