Monday, August 26, 2002

Walkabout Buffalo, Part II
They’ve got everything a proper downtown needs:
Trains, theater, food, sparkly lights
Just nobody lives there.
Yet.

Central New York is still Appalachia, and it shows
In the good ways, anyway.
The Catskills wear scarves of fog
Some man-made, some nature-bestowed
Although we never know where the butterfly will flap its wings

The first soft ground for camping led to a good night’s riverside sleep
Tetherball re-appears to me for the first time in ages
Alas, no challengers at my altitude

The Hudson River School must have had a great view
It shows.

Robin’s house very scenic – but 25 precisely ordered rolls of film later we think
Hmmm… maybe we should have marked the ones we liked….

Canoeing is explored, and Cold Harbor is reached.
Small Town bandstand firehouse fundraiser
This is the life.



8/26/2002 09:45:17 AM

Friday, August 23, 2002

Senaca Falls wants to be famous
for being the model for "It's a Wonderful Life"
Is this a backlash to the feminism ties?
Still, many good parks
about a much-needed declaration

Buffalo, not quite on the way to Cape Cod,
has a small town charm
Some old high school yearbooks
reveal that I am my father's son.

Niagara Falls are best seen from a boat
not a barrel -- or so we hear.
We didn't compare.


8/23/2002 11:46:29 PM

Thursday, August 22, 2002

Ithica seems like an excellent place to live
For eight or ten weeks of the year
in soft autumn breezes

Otherwise,
I'd rather drink my Ice.
Not walk on it.

8/22/2002 12:42:56 PM

The ground's too hard,
and the car too soft
It seems
that travelling is best done
without a back.

Diner Canasta in Gettysburg
Yet another bookstore of Civil Minutiae
Leaving on I-15, we escape that war
For the other one.
A revolutionary war is simply a civil war won.

Stopping to re-shoe, we see pigs fly
and Christmas in abundance.

Small towns in tangent to
smaller roads
one proclaims
"Founded a long time ago."

New York returns us to cell phone civilization
Moosewood bound are we!

G-dPap offers his farm
and Lawyer lady her cheesemaker
'tis all good.
8/22/2002 12:10:18 PM

Tuesday, August 20, 2002

Long and winding roads through forests
Past the occasional TV radar
accompanied by the goats, cows, and horses
that found their homes
transplanted here.

History repeats itself
On the half-hour
A period wool uniform
does seem to help,
even in August.

Camping like this
is really just a cheap hotel room
But that's o.k.
exercise mats have their uses.

Half of what we save on housing
we spend on food.
seems like a fair trade.

8/20/2002 07:25:27 PM

Wednesday, August 14, 2002

"Anew"

A month shy of my 21st,
My Mother and Father,
They welcomed me out into the world
With a ring.

At first, I feared to lose it,
This link to my past and
Signature of one of my names
Cresting over my finger like a
Shield,
more than a coat.

It took the bones of my right hand a year
To shape themselves around this ring.

It’s not that the gold was stronger than
The stuff that holds me together
It’s just that
The past is inflexible
And my body is my future.

Two months shy of my 34th,
As I pass from Son to Husband
And the bones of my other hand
Begin the process
Anew.
8/14/2002 11:08:20 PM