Thank you for visiting my website — Dave Baldwin
Note: More recent poems appear first.
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pan-fried trout
I learn something new
about my father
The Heron’s Nest
Heron’s Nest Award, December 2011: Editor’s Choice
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pinwheeling leaves
thirty-five years end
with the word amicable
Frogpond
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winter
the empty space
inside the cello
Modern Haiku
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August moon
children disappear
into their lives
Modern Haiku
and
San Marino High School class reunion memory book
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Sawtooth Mountains
the alpine lake is stocked
with clouds
Modern Haiku
∞
as I cut and splice
a few salient vignettes,
the rest of my life
spools out
on the cutting room floor
Simply Haiku
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walking away
from the laugh track
into the twilit park,
into the noise-cone
of a brood of cicadas
TSA Ribbons
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Taps…
the widow folds her life
and puts it away
Simply Haiku
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waking up
to the first nudge
of pain…
great unweavings begin
with one loose thread
American Tanka
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summer heat
coming all this distance to find
nothing but distance
Paper Wasp
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the pounding surf…
why does it matter now
after 40 years?
bleached stones against
the bleached sky
Simply Haiku
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redgold salmon
flap their tails…
Indian summer
Paper Wasp
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the hard-breathing trout
explaining death
to a child
Frogpond
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bitter snowstorm…
strangers become friends
for a day
The Heron’s Nest
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I put down my pen
to watch the birds
swallows criss-cross the street
hour after hour because…
I have no idea
TSA Ribbons
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dried dogwood flowers
the old couple
eats in silence
Simply Haiku
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deep coral tulips—
our quiet
conversation
The Heron’s Nest
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phosphorous flares
illuminate those
about to die
Huey gunships
are pissing bullets
Simply Haiku
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restless ducks
fly south
fly north
The Heron’s Nest
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looking ahead to the past
remembering the future
one datastream
the road from home
is a road leading home
Simply Haiku
∞
a pinwheeling leaf
strikes the watercourse
and floats around the bend
gone forever
do you ever think of me?
Simply Haiku
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repair work
on the dam
emptying out
the harmony
of water and mud
Simply Haiku
∞
she touched my cheek
and turned away—
summer’s end
how many turns
around the sun?
TSA Ribbons
∞
the river flowed backward
for her—friends took leave
one by one
she is all alone
at the source
TSA Ribbons
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double-clicking
the Events folder
our first kiss—
remembering your touch,
the tilt of your face
TSA Ribbons
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Oregon fog
rumors
of mountains
The Heron’s Nest
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wind over the lake
desiccate leaves
scrape indolently
at our feet
like the years
American Tanka
∞
my glass is filled
with dusk tonight
I swirl the west and think of you
and sip the stars
down to the stem
Simply Haiku
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lost mojo
on the Red Line
a sweet face
no opportunity
for me
TSA Ribbons
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The Way
The way eludes the snare
Of language. It is hard to catch the wheeling birds
Scurrying up a helixing stair,
But harder still to catch the way with words.
The heart that hangs stretched and framed
Is not the heart of hearts;
The way that can be named
And then defined is not the way.
The way conceals itself by being nameless.
Abundantly clear from far away,
The mountain gradually fades to shades of white;
Such vastness mirrors the way.
The patient, widening eye controls the night.
Eventually, patterns emerge,
Defining themselves with immanent light,
Suggesting a subtle demiurge
Behind a shadowy veil
Behind another veil on Heaven’s edge
Behind the tangible veil
Of Earth; for Earth is the pattern for man,
Then Heaven for Earth; and through the farthest veil
The way parses our natural plan.
Arnazella
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1066
Historians lust for great events,
The violent one percent,
So nothing happens nearly every year.
Stamford Bridge and Hastings stretched a month;
Whatever happened years before
Or since that raven glut?
For each combatant, hundreds more
Were not involved, as Norseman, Norman, Celt
And Saxon plowed the green
Or toiled the cold Atlantic,
Gave birth in perishing huts or softly sang
For children alliterative lullabies.
Arnazella
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Class of 1960
We meet again, halfway to the sea;
We touch again, halfway from the snow.
Our disentangled lives have floated free
Through range and farm and city far below,
And far away from home. We floated free
Within the groove of the river’s quiet flow.
Our lives are channeled—this we clearly see;
Our cut of land determines where we go;
But how we go is up to you and me.
Entangled as we are again tonight,
Salute the past, then say a last good-by.
Remember me as I appear tonight
And I’ll remember you with an inward eye
Until the whispering river meets the sea.
San Marino High School class reunion memory book
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Back Jackknife
His rigid arms are pointing down as he walks
The diver’s practiced pace toward the edge
And deftly spins around to set his feet.
The crowd grows quiet as he is on his toes,
To seek and find the pulse of limber steel.
With that assured, arms come up, palms flat
And facing down; knuckles nudge his gaze.
Silence snaps—he takes the backward leap,
Exploding blind at forty-five degrees
(Too high, you flop; too low and over you go),
And belly muscles pull his daggered toes
Into a row of waiting fingertips
Still reaching out directly from the chest.
He shuts the knife exactly at the apogee;
His body forms a tight, symmetrical V.
And just a blink beyond, he pops the knife.
The head flies back and arms in tandem follow
Violently; so head, arms, and back design
A deadly blade to cut the water clean.
He nails the perfect dive. And slicing through
The bottom of the sky, he suns in blithe applause.
Aethlon
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