After thirty-five years, Tim has finally retired as a college English instructor, most recently with the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh. He has written a fair amount of poetry and fiction in his life but has seldom ventured to get it published. Maybe that will change, now that he has even more time to scribble.
From Walks Along the Eno River
Rocks collared in ice,
This river bathes a thousand
Glaciated isles.
Deep in river wood
Are these pearl sherds underfoot?
Oysters from the flood
High above Pea Creek
It’s as though the hills, bloodless,
Hemorrhaged crystal bile.
The swifter the flow,
The sooner it sheds its skin,
Flaying from within.
Here on turtle’s back
I see where I stood last year
Facing me downstream.
Upended giant,
Parts scattered everywhere,
Hole already filled.
Enthusiasm:
What is lost repeatedly
In reaching trail’s end
The mind and its schemes
Drown out the chickadees’ cheeps
No more words today
Two Translations from the Korean
Vase (by Gho Du-dong)
White porcelain holds a day,
Untroubled silence of static pools,
And calls upon the sun-and-moon –
First to turn, then to stay.
My mind, fissured by a flood of years
And runneled by our gloomy age's storms,
Holds quiet as the clay –
Spirit soaring through the tears.
Here and Now (by Yoo Sang-duk)
There are nights on this solitary mountain
When the the stars, summoned by regret, tower like a forest,
Its glimmering boughs the roost of a white-tailed bird.
Like leaves severed from life by a fatal breeze,
Sounds of pecking descend the dark -- echo and drum
In a mind empty of all but futility.
The wind's rustling tentacles coil cold and tight
About a lone sapling and wrench it into sweaty submission.
In its thin skin is a wound that widens daily.
~Timothy O'Grady
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| Aztalan-Courtesy of Tim O'Grady |
From Walks Along the Eno River
Rocks collared in ice,
This river bathes a thousand
Glaciated isles.
One steps cautiously
Past the clot of detritus
Where blue herons dream.
Deaf from trudging through the leaves –
Halt! Hollies glitter
In the low noon sun.
Deaf from trudging through the leaves –
Halt! Hollies glitter
In the low noon sun.
Deep in river wood
Are these pearl sherds underfoot?
Oysters from the flood
High above Pea Creek
It’s as though the hills, bloodless,
Hemorrhaged crystal bile.
The swifter the flow,
The sooner it sheds its skin,
Flaying from within.
Here on turtle’s back
I see where I stood last year
Facing me downstream.
Upended giant,
Parts scattered everywhere,
Hole already filled.
Enthusiasm:
What is lost repeatedly
In reaching trail’s end
The mind and its schemes
No more words today
Two Translations from the Korean
Vase (by Gho Du-dong)
White porcelain holds a day,
Untroubled silence of static pools,
And calls upon the sun-and-moon –
First to turn, then to stay.
My mind, fissured by a flood of years
And runneled by our gloomy age's storms,
Holds quiet as the clay –
Spirit soaring through the tears.
Here and Now (by Yoo Sang-duk)
There are nights on this solitary mountain
When the the stars, summoned by regret, tower like a forest,
Its glimmering boughs the roost of a white-tailed bird.
Like leaves severed from life by a fatal breeze,
Sounds of pecking descend the dark -- echo and drum
In a mind empty of all but futility.
The wind's rustling tentacles coil cold and tight
About a lone sapling and wrench it into sweaty submission.
In its thin skin is a wound that widens daily.
~Timothy O'Grady
