Cape Ann Shore. Carl Peters (1897-1980)

 

 

When the Gentleness Arrived

 

 

I don’t know when the gentleness arrived.

It could have been that day way out on the peninsula

where the sea, stones, mussel shells greeted me in unison.

It could have been as recent as yesterday,

when the leaf my granddaughter picked up

& blew away, I took Williams’ advice & kissed it.

It surely wasn’t long ago when the war raged

as much inside of me as Nam, Afghanistan,

Iraq, or between father & me, no, not then.

It could have been that first snowfall

I had to call her to look at for herself, or

when I first heard the Bach phrase in a Jarrett

improvisation.

 

Robert Gibbons, a former Gloucester resident, is the author of nine books of poetry. In 2013, in addition to completing a Trilogy of prose poems with Nine Point Publishing,   he published Olson/Still: Crossroad, a brief study concerning the similarities in approach to art by Olson in words, and Clyfford Still in paint.