who took the egg of the moon
from the mouth of a child
for each to know air

is it the pressure of the brush

that lifts the world

like feather

i was a child
and a silver craft fell home
into nobody else

dream looked around inside the child

            found room    burned

                        a Ferris wheel down

accept sunlight on winter aconite
father
who never asked me my name

stones are slow
slower than me
turning into breeze

our eyes open in the afternoon
we see dusk
through falling snow

prayer kneels down
wind builds a nest
for the passenger you carry without knowing

a dark hand reached through you
brought the gift in
birth

we stood close

            where desert was praying

                        and the wind burned us down

water world
then the first meadow finding air

crow plunders old nest
death
of a small space

random lines make sense
make a nest

dark plane
in sky foam
anchored to a star

a branch of the sky breaks

            with a whisper

                        the boy will never forget

shoveling water, sweeping rain

            at the end of my street

                        neighbors are soaring

hear the lie spoken as if inside me

            push debris off the wharf

                        into a breeze crossing the sea

your face in a window of the Atlantic

                        turns away—

            every stone in the sea stops sinking

the shipwrecked themselves turn into water

like the cradle

                        that ferried me here

the dream drew an oven on the kitchen wall

            used my hands to hold the mass

                        that heaved without a bone

how much earth

            must i lose

                        to claim the moon’s white shoes

i miss the world

            mountains lost and lost

                        the ark unable to land

like soft thin pine leaves

            needled with frost

i sleep naked in the world

the dark in an open boat comes back

            whispering its need for life

my coffin sinks then rises

            the face of the wind feels wings

a winter rose

in unfinished skies—

                                                where the raven hasn’t died

the dream grows new rooms

for a man i do not know

for the altar one sees at the end

when i separate from my hands,

            said the water,

                        whose journey will be done

one grain of rice

                        (for many bowls)

the guest left behind

black wings block the black rain

            journey begins

anchor seeks a sail

the task of wandering

          across that scar in my heart

                        where new light falls

crossing the river above the trees

                                                            —

                                                                        my flood raised to feather

late in our moon

and no

one

asleep in the barn

through ice works

            on maple buds—

                        —long walk to the sun

many times of being lost

            in place

like a lake between the waters

was it the ecstasy of plants

            —when blood learned it could be silent

a child's cup of moonlight was the thread of my returning

something eternal

            worn down

                        to a man who believes he’s sleeping

my flaws drifting from stone to stone—becoming the white sky

waking the mountain to strike a small bell

in a nest shaped like death
      night lays its transparent eggs

the garden hardly seemed to breathe
      as i grew and it dreamed and we died

that star that fell up a crooked sky
      into the bed where its heart would stop

slowly up

the ladder

into thunder

was wonderful
to come home
to the goldfinch you've been watching

one burst of leaf fall

ahead of me

that only i later i see as prayer

thunder

elsewhere

chrysalis

shadow

sun

shadow

sun

one

a bellflower stalk

bent over

the flying cloud

the tree leaps

from squirrel

to me

hot pepper

picking

i am the one

something all alone is near

            thus the mountains of my past

                        come true

the sounds of a sail

this day

i put on the sun

i never knew

myself so well   

as in snow

too small to

                        feed a soul    the

                                                            broken shine

stains in your room at the end of the world

why does curiosity nesting in blue sand become egg

holding birth by long white stem

sent an old postcard from the rain to myself

the moment your silent music comes true

mists from your heart half hiding the home of the moon

in the secret game in the secret room your face is circled

nights of love without knowing what a child would know

years bending in the wind from the fall of a grave

gazing at a boy in the insomniac's mirror

empty chairs in the cornfield where childhood begins

a voice in the mirror with tiny cracks

old chimney fires lingering in the alley through november

the only dovecote in flames without a girl's face

holding the eternal kaleidoscope tighter and tighter

studies of happiness stitched into the silence of a white piano

one who never travelled beyond the objects he loved

each end of this fallen tree rests on sky

an early death standing with hands in its pockets at daybreak

my childhood inside someone else never used

an audience reading around the desk of my solitude

untying an old prayer from the rose

memory of falling stars    November    waking the dark water

tell me the stone where i can find tomorrow

the moon counting its delicate birds

shapes the seed to what i wanted

fell until a cloud

come back to see the feeding of the bell

alters the dream in its dark blue cloth

then the cage breaks apart and flies away

drinks rain from blood in the trees

kneels in my hand after climbing up the rain

ferries the island to its blind stone heads

promised the nameless their own door

weeps sand into the shadow with opened eyes

wept a black vulture into the valley of bones 

melts into prayer across the skin of a thorn

waits with a touch in the corridor outside my dream

wakens the voice behind glass at the top of the sea

the color that comes back as windflower

the first sunrise will go on asking an older fire

the long limbs of your light climbing a mountain

where arches come ashore and the saint is barren

plows everything back into the afterlife

sees into a blind eye