Anxiety lodges under my skin
a splinter pricking a nerve
when I tap my fingertip
or brush it against my shirt
I need emotional tweezers.

David M. Frye
April 20, 2009
Denton, Neb.

When oblique sunlight
slices through streets
in Sunday’s solitude
even ordinary objects
like a twisted juice box
a rusted sign post
a broken and barked stick
cast transmogrified shadows
across dewy pavement.

David M. Frye
April 19, 2009
Portland, Ore.

Once I learned how sea creatures
died in prehistoric oceans
fell like snow upon the depths
and glaciated over millennia
their calcified bodies
forming limestone and marble
depending upon pressure and time.

I hold out no such hopes
for the drifts of detritus
blanketing the tables
at Portland’s biggest garage sale:
dusty blister packs of Spocks
from Star Trek V: The Final Frontier,
empty one-use Coke bottles,
Armageddon on VHS,
customizable scratching posts,
pristine volumes of Reader’s Digest Condensed Books.

All the wonders of America’s search
for satisfaction through consumption,
sifted and sorted, tagged and tabled,
will someday settle into landfills
and be tucked into bed
under bulldozed blankets.

Is there time enough and pressure sufficient
to make plastic limestone and vinyl marble
from the husks and shells of our shed refuse?
Who will mine the strata we bequeath?

Everything must go.
Priced to sell.
No reasonable offer refused.

David M. Frye
April 18, 2009
Portland, Ore.

Once I took the day’s newspaper
to my dad’s darkroom
pulled the string on the light
and arranged the comics page
on the gridded green surface
of the paper cutter
lined up the Mark Trail comic
with the edge of the cutter
grabbed the blade’s handle
and brought the cutter down
slicing my left thumb
from nail to knuckle down to the bone.

I don’t remember
the pain or the blood
or the trip to the ER
or the needle and stitches
but even after thirty-eight years
recalling and dwelling
on the memory makes me queasy.

My thumb is scarred and if it’s true
that one’s cells turn over
every seven years then Thumb VI
is scarred, but faithfully
grows a scarred nail
reminding me daily that
actions have repercussions
changes persist and
I am an abiding and identifiable
pattern painted in matter and memory
the sum and product
of all the cuts and scrapes
the tears and pain
but also the joy and hopes
the love and faith
of forty-seven years
equalling the man
known as David.

David M. Frye
April 17, 2009
In flight to Portland, Ore.

No leaves on trees
catch the plit of drops
a cloud shakes its pinions dry
and finds instead
a flat of stone
a back of dog
a cheek of face
baptizing
earth and beast and man
as night flutters into day
and wind’s towel dabs
skin and fur and rock
leaving only a memory
shed like a feather
from weather’s wings.

David M. Frye
April 16, 2009
Denton, Neb.

Water and hand and wheel
raise a pot
from a lump of clay.

Slurry and hand and screen
sift a page
from a soup of wood.

Heat and hand and hammer
forge a leaf
from a rod of iron.

When hands touch
and eyes behold,
when minds recall
and hearts embrace,
then wood and iron and clay
conspire with us
in re-creation.

It is good.
It is good to be embraced,
to be recalled.
It is good to be beheld,
to be touched.
Whether clay or iron or wood
or flesh and spirit, it is good.
It is good.

David M. Frye
April 15, 2009
Denton, Neb.

I. Sunrise

Meadowlark greets dawn
Cormorants’ wings whispering
Pond exhaling mists.

II. Turkeys

Twelve turkeys ambled along the gravel road
taking both lanes and ditches
ignoring the grinding of tires.

III. Aftermath

Twigs fractured and fallen lie
scattered by storm’s winds
and rest from skyward striving
while on wet asphalt worms
writhe and twist and wander
restless in seeking soil.

Are we twigs or worms?

David M. Frye
April 14, 2009
Denton, Neb.

I am a yellow dandelion flower
sprinkled by a gentle rain
falling from gray stratus clouds,
a blanket draped upon the land.
The shower passes over,
washing and watering me.

I am a cotton dress shirt
spotted by water droplets
falling from the sprinkler top
on an old Blue Nun bottle.
The iron passes over,
steaming and pressing me.

I am a man in a yellow cotton shirt
splashed by the vigil’s asperges*
flinging blessed water,
a reminder of the primal washing.
The spray passes over,
refreshing and renewing me.

*From the Latin phrase, Asperges me, meaning “Sprinkle me,” that begins the portion of the liturgy when holy water is sprinkled upon the altar and the people.

David M. Frye
April 13, 2009
Denton, Neb.

We bend words thin and pale
at their points of flexion,
our forearms shaking,
but no filigree makes talk
of chrysalides and butterflies
grain and wheat emerge
triumphant from oral caverns
as the metaphor with shoulders
broad enough to carry us across
the chasm from death to life.
We turn instead to exclamation–
Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!
Alleluia!

David M. Frye
April 12, 2009
Denton, Neb.

Hope sounds like meadow birds
singing in the darkness before
the rising of the sun,
riffs entwined and floating
like the bubbles Grandma made
when she dipped her metal wand
and spun in a circle, her arms
outstretched, a trail of iridescent spheres
arcing behind her hand, riding
the spring breeze in the garden
as I chased and batted and giggled
until my hands grew soap-slippery
and my eyes glimpsed one last
bubble borne upon a gentle breath
above the dogwood, rising
free, a fragile and glorious
balance of tensions and pressures
cut loose from the earth,
beyond my fingers’ fatal touch.

David M. Frye
April 11, 2009
Denton, Neb.