flood is for the rescue of something held over our heads    then mud turning back into children

in colors opposed to color    in the garden of a smothered hand    she painted her windows open

a simple word bleeding, wrapped in a shroud    the sky as barefoot as birds

in the long silence of the lie is the child you first loved forcing his ashes to sing

am i pain without the odor of wound    a new stain far removed from the flesh of the robe

no laurel could touch me while the poet was living when God was the odor of the moon

murmur of a wave whose body is bleeding :: what i see beyond the end of the rose

we know what is coming is no more closed than the blade lying in bed beside me

the way home keeps changing its face until i have no life that hasn't started to live

bending against the snow that falls from God    nothing else can be so still

the awful defeat of a little town    is a wind or a star inside me

where the other face of night is looking    is to be kissed by what the young poet saw

in the sands of the moon a dream horse roams    thus i had no model for life

in the voice of the dew as it bleeds a rose    if i forget the origin of love

i remember the motionless hanging    as if to die    in the sky of another's pain

who wiped the ears of the dust away and sang without voice the creation of song

what happened to the yearning that called my name    from a light in a window of the cross

i shall seal up my windows to bring in the sea    sings the embryo of all we are not

comes a lover who wears the body of the moon    and my life is barely begun

how else shall the heart commune with faith    but in the disquiet of yesterday's light

on the table of stone rests a motionless song    now my forests refuse all light

the birth that was once and named forever    the pulse that preceded my heart

singing to be alone and not alone    as i sweep my aging path

the pleasure of singing into the ears of giant trees    is how i have come to change

when you wake in the night there is nothing to fear    come down to the place where you lie

low voices of trees dragging my soul by its sleeve    the lightning still in its seed

why should someone dream of me    set heart in a place beyond what is seen

the night and the day are her arms her name    and the river we are given to hold

within an earlier melody    unknown outside the dream    are the lands i am and will learn to perceive

the valley that opens where nobody is looking    the light that hurts to understand

many winters one old robe    everyone i love but do not know opening in the wind

our home as it should be    without further blessing    than the fall of all that becomes

from these rows of ashes still warm you will grow    your silence is no one else

why i can't put my mouth into words    takes a lifetime of candling for life

the orioles are here but where have we hidden the song of the trees

the heart in the stone beat again while i slept at the end of never getting home

who owns the silence    and who else would know    the love that hides our beginning

thus i was given me    vein upon vein    around eyes that were already there

the sound of the severed string is this :: which vow to your death have you failed

i heard a life fall    or i heard nothing at all    the arms of the cross at my feet

will i see through the window that has fallen asleep    my casket carrying its rain

with the taste of stars in my mouth    whose wisdom am i ready to learn

that part of the sky that fell into my mind    is to whisper the name of the raven

what can you write on the skin of the past that only the sleepers will read

the gate of the moon left open    is to love what i cannot know

there comes a day when it will not open when i ask the sun its troubles

there was a black branch touching the silence where neither could remember waking

from hands you will never see spilling music for the first time because you are just arrived

streets walking with their heads held low ::  i climb the stairs of the rain

i love this song that was not heard until the moon was warm from its birth