Scenes From Bulgaria: Sofia, Asenovgrad, Plovdiv, and the Rila Monastery

A Woodpecker at Work

A Translation: "Prayer" by Boris Hristov

The fog clothes the way like a greatcoat with its long sleeves hung low.
I wear the coat too, tailored just to my size,
and I pray -- do not forget anybody this night,
God, as you pass on the road in your white carriage.

Give each poor man the ease to wake with the noon sun in his hair
and money to the miser, though it will never lighten his day.
Let the dwarf find every honey barrel next to a stair,
and the actor find his next performance in an acclaimed play.

Invite the poet to dinner, fill his belly and pen,
and give his horse oats with each poem.
Sit with the lonely man in his long wait,
and sneeze for the ill as they doze.

Choose a new life for the executioner,
and crush the hungry tick who brings the girls dread.
Fasten the children's seat belts as they sleep on the plane,
and walk the tired old man to this bed.

Give the dead man a night cap and a peaceful book,
and make an oasis for the tree at the corner of the street.
And for me -- help me home this night
to wash, God, my mother's tired feet.

Fall

Wisconsin farmland in summer

Sometimes dust and moisture mass
over silos full of feed and red barns

A hole might form in black vapor
and one rebel beam arc godly to land

The fields are soaked fierce green
after rainfall

At night the country’s flat spread
holds up big sky

Frog songs and fire flies get up
in wet summer dark

Explanation of Laughter by the Lake

He’s at the table
smoking
nothing but the girl
spelled by awake looks,
in music
waves of lips
in smoke

He moves to dance by her
His dancing is reeling
He swims for his life
between just bored couples
in helixical step —
echos
with beats of please and thank you
dancing
watched by dancing
set to music

He is a contained reef of unicellular ocean life
perspiring in torrid rooms
talking under songs
reminded to drink the next shifts in
propagating Himself in compatible mediums
slowly diffusing out the door.

Later we are walking:
                the lake
                the water
We move up the shore
with the other waves

Birds After Fall

birds ellipse with snow in viscous sunrise,
drawling to the green read south so quiet and early
the birds all take perfect shape with us
when we stop this time to watch
their wobbling cone’s edge precess as our orchestration
explaining what we’d have if we thought rightly
washing the city in flattering geometry
the pinnacle of every cone
the origin of their circling
point fixed lately to my stepping foot
their nodding having waved us on,
                  but kindly.

Thank you feather-legged keen-eyes
for the gift
like a coin flipped,
honored.