Poems About Rita Dove Seeking Friendly Advice

Pitter patter
goes my heart
every time I see you.

Take what belongs
to you - the heart
moving with
every breath
and word spoken
So eloquently.

All I yearned for
was simplicity
and easiness.

The heart never
loses its shape
nor its color
as it never stops
its birdlike or drum
like consistency.

It never stops its
path to freedom.

Water keeps its horrors
while sky proclaims his,
hangs them in stars.'

              - Rita Dove


An old man who owns this place,
thinks he does, looks out from here
as I approach in reunion.
He appears not to remember me,
remember us -- my hand dwarfed by his;
sweating into his great husk
shelled of all proliferation
among the shore debris.

                  *

Among the shore debris
a morbidity of tides is dumped
in a final throe --
a last soprano tremble
that reaches for...

The rain held off
for hours, long enough to smell
its presence -- warm and burned;
summer sun afar now,
leaving crisp cobalt air
to chill our skin
in early dusk of late day.

Our wood stack sits
in anticipation of purpose --
to rise and leave its bed
with a crackle and pop.
Our hearts stiffen as
flower heads on rigid stalks.
We can't yet fathom Spring
in the sea of brown and gold --
its trimmings

Trail our feet;
rustle a scratchy, unmetered
tune on a hollow, stringless...