Robert Ronnow Poems

Today is Sunday and I'm going to the ocean
or maybe not. Definitely not doing the laundry
or maybe I will. Moss and even a small tree
grow in the rotten stubs of the pier pilings.
...

Rereading the poems of others
and my own. Community across
time and graves. What's left
exceeds in significance
...

Late in life I struggle against my insignificance
When I should enjoy the freedom from performance
      before an audience.
Applause is happiness but if they withhold applause,
...

Suppose there is no life in space, just us. And we inhabit
      Mars,
air condition Venus. Hold family barbecues, national
      holidays
...

Spring peepers
stop peeping. A satellite
crosses sky. One peeper keeps peeping
in time to the satellite blinking, an eye.
...

Having not done the things I wanted to do
and the things I've done not being what I wanted to do
I sit here looking at lichen on the north side of trees.
...

1

At peace perhaps too much
a fine Spring rain
...

As air and leaf litter are substrate for the bird.
And what makes a human. Separation from the
      substrate.
Believing the substrate and the subject are separately
...

Sun and traffic - day economy.
Six a.m. drive to plywood mill. Too tired
to be angry. Each day a step
toward death. What is being accomplished? The
...

The teacher dies having made her small contribution
to the colonization of other planets by motivating
a boy who would otherwise be a coal miner to become
a rocket engineer.
...