When I Read David Budbill Died

David Budbill was I poet who lived in VT, died last September. He often referred to himself as "Mt. Judevine," borrowing the meme of the ancient Chinese Tao poets, who used the name of the mountain they lived on as their own.
Leonard Cohen was more commonly well known. Google him if you need his deets.


When I Read David Budbill Died

  When I read David Budbill died
I heard no Judevine mountain cry,
  No one enlightened glorified,
No breath detained to sake his name,
  It’s oaks still waive and toss the same

  When black dressed Leonard Cohen passed,
What changed his songs, made us bereft,
  Since then has his voice cracked, or cleft,
As if old Hamlets’ ghost had breath,
  As if a hallowed voice bore heft

  We poets spin wide webs of words,
In gravitas, we beg be heard,
  Then we depart, on wings like birds,
When we take rest in the constant Earth,
  Will the World increase, or shed, in girth?
As light as air,
  Are our words worth

At the Bitter Evening Dusk

Most of what I write, even if religious-y, isn't as squarely formal and pious as this. In my defense, this afternoon I was reading Rainer Maria Rilke, it's his fault, he set me in this mood.
Still, timely for the season. Kinda Advent-y.


At the Bitter Evening Dusk

Lord, at the bitter evening dusk,
  Let Autumn judgements somber Fall,
Fruits of the land decay to husk,
  Long shadows knit into a pall
 
We honest blessed of your harvest,
  Have set our stores of all things good,
The penitent, those whom you test,
  Are welcome share our hearth, our wood

Though longer we must spare your light,
  While grim bone winter grips the night,
We shall with warmth of Faith inside,
  Await the ebb of eventide

Your lifting darks’ catastrophe,
  Beyond our means, grant in your ways,
Your gifted child, our majesty,
  Restore us life, come fruitful days