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Distance

Reeds in the marsh
are a bleached yellow.
It’s early morning when I return.
Cold air moves across warm water
where gray paint rises like clouds
and words adhere to the surface of the wind.
              
It becomes easy to curse the distance
and hurt one another.
After a while
talking this way becomes matter-of-fact,
an acceptance of abuse.
              
I reject these arguments
and pull water hyacinth from my oars.
In rebuttal
a gray boat rows across the marsh.              

Here are the syllables of water.
A vague disc in the sky
discerns              
and dries up low-lying clouds.
A boat slows to a silence
bringing me to you.

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Mark Goldman began writing poetry in high school and continued through his college years. After a brief time in Chicago with VISTA, he served in the US Army with a 13-month tour in Korea then returned to work in Philadelphia and participate in the poetry scene before moving with his wife to Pittsburgh. Here, he became involved with the Pittsburgh Poetry Exchange and completed his first volume of poems, Window Behind Stars. In 1982 he was accepted into the MFA Playwrights Program at CMU and completed three plays — Cool Cucumbers, Little Canyon, and Deuce's Wild. Then for nearly 20 years with the demands of work and family, he found little time to write. Now, he is working on a collection of poems, Canoe Trip to Possum Lake as well as a play, Sweetwater. He currently works as a director of technical services and sales in horticultural sustainability.