B.Z. Niditch- Three Poems

JUNE AT SEA MORNING

Who astonishes me

along the ruddy shore morning

in view at a port of entry

from my new sun shades

setting out like angels

unshaven as the prophets

ask my friend to join

me in the psalms

as we clasp hands

at my kayak anchor

following a rainbow

in the twilight sky

she feeling dizzy

as the boat rocks on

the wind shatters us

on the Atlantic

as we cross the ocean

with a greeting kiss

a sail boat crosses

hearing the empty cry

of an albatross

and I share with her

with my knowledge

of Baudelaire's abyss 

and Samuel Taylor 's

Rhyme of a Mariner

in the cold air

and she is refreshed.

IN LEXINGTON

Those new blueberries

wash in our cool hands

which keep us in sweetness

on airy dawn's of a June day

we hike on Indian trails

ablaze in the mangrove

a drowsy dawn passes by

through kicking a ball

at soccer practice,

gone is the wintry ice

over tall grass shade

against the west wind

at a hive of bees move

by a sleepy current

of the sunny river bed

reading my poems
to a circle of students

overcoming the pine combs 

on common ground

over red Indian blankets

of spreading light

all of us in turn

reciting words 

from Thoreau

among a relentless sunshine

on these sacred grounds

as nature reveals

the same Emerson wisdom

as blackbirds red wings

fall under the bridge.

 

AT THE MUSEUM

As my girl friend appears

in the museum courtyard

awaiting Mattise

Old Masters and the modern

we in our white sneakers,

carry drawing easels

to expand our local color

in the hill background

and some of Eliot and Auden's

in sequences of wise words

being the fortieth in line

suddenly taking out

my alto sax fingers are ready

on a sensitive mouth

as riffs in pages 

of composed shadows

play out its riffs of notes

on the steps

and moments of blues

flee from us

from cherished C flats,

in luminous memories

from my reed

of a high range

fathomless rhythm

always making raves.