lives cautiously within the sound of his own name.

trusts windows that question the passage of light.

will never understand being shaken by the wind.

 

sycamore shines like a day happy to be alone. alive.

without the fear of the rose within the rose within the rose...

everybody awake, near, unguarded.

snow

free fall and crystalline

intricate machines of vanished moments

the outside of silence

 

 

we pull off our clothes. look far into each other. become 

lightning swags swaying through summer.

time unravels into color.

 

her blue eyes ached seeing newborn earth. shadows,

luminous, of wind-killing trees. left old choices on the floor

around her bed. follower of dusk, decay and lost beauty.

 

from an inscription etched on water i learned to tie

a small voice to falling leaves.

when i find you will you be looking for me?

will we know which one is alive?

 

liquid. as a lake between two waters.

as the flooded ark of home.

my shadow in water shall die of thirst.

 

found a coin in last night's loam. smaller than

silver. larger than gold. the child's cup of moonlight

throws a blue shadow. where mist rakes its tines. soul throbs.

 

she says we are what we cannot see.

something eternal worn down to the human.

whose blood has some light from the birth of the sky.

 

a woman and a man live alone, together, marry, share a snowfall.

trains pass through the nights of their dreams. without lights. without sound.

without disturbing either soul. the sky turns pearl at the end of the snow.

 

frailty. the face painted on a window. the window painted on a wall.

not all can tell the one wounded whose wounds don't show.

night dreams of a star climbing the cold crooked sky—burden

of dignity broken apart—into a trembling bed where his heart will stop.

 

gloom is a waltz seeking heaven

a star among clots and murdered flowers

the fate i have drawn from your eyes.

men bring many bowls for a single grain of rice

the guest left behind, saying, death

is full, my people, move on.

 

a blue lake sleeps at the foot of a blue mountain. where my 

life is an island adrift. poems sail into a mirrorless day.

each end of the sky moored to a single blue tree.

 

cedar smoke. mesas. the cranes will come back. strange

that a naked mind is here at all. wisdom turns to dust and dust

becomes wisdom. why are the names of our angels unknown?

 

rain falls without clouds. without sky. without judgment. timber

by timber the old structures are brought down. a poet of white flowers,

lying near death, discovers salt in the depths of heaven.

 

love song. we seem to have forgotten

the iron fence

in the fog.

 

an empty bowl falls to the floor in the hush before a storm

preparing a single light to mark the exit where silence crowds

greeting  night's dark horse and gaping cart as friends of distance and love.

 

space has no gate except an eye. or the gap between lips

too parted. in your absence plates rattle. silence wails

behind the wall. to be healed, must all be crippled.

 

when a snowflake melts the path's completed.

no grass in the field. stars give birth to four in the morning.

i begin one endless sentence to remember all words.

 

being of one body, we undress together. down to a satchel

of lost poems. love hides nothing. lives in veins.

god's heartbeat's heard. when one pounds on stone.

 

the night you are not conceived silent messengers

come and go. to say a dark cathedral better houses the moon.

let me never forget how i abandoned my home.

 

skin forms around the shadows it will hold within. milk mixed with

night forms blood. the patient ship has raised up its lanterns. Jesus-like.

gnawed by the sea. while a simple cairn endures the frost.

 

i was born entering a muffled room. i was born with a bird nesting

on my head. black white red. i was born in a river swollen with rain.

brought out before the falls. before the waters turned flame.

 

words written within a shell. words wrapped 

around pearl. she left her lover cream peonies.

whenever a lover died. silent words woke the child.

 

after the crisis of weapons and assassinations. life became a small

country of iron and dearth. we began to appear in his poems. worked

as a night watch for the invisible world. brewed ashes into a beginning.

 

corn and soybeans in phalanx advance across the fields.

where the journey of starlight dies. if i don't sleep with sky

how can i know the shadows inside are god.

 

prayer flags choose their way in the wind. an old pagan

joy leads me on. forgive me dawn, for i am not a house 

of light. cold waters close over the sun.

 

the soul of a tree has been found in a bit of amber. as it stood

at dawn in a promised rain. the white coffin beside it

would soon rise to heaven. where clouds parted in silence.

 

what does bone dust say. what does blood

in the black earth say. will you be the field

of my surrender.

 

a tree of singular stature towers above

an unpitying field. where a boy begins to know.

love is the one who shapes silence.

 

crossed a field where the plow ceased turning. poisoned vapors. mists

bereft of leaf and root. soil homesick for soul. uncaring and unloved,

as much denied as deserved. eternity of the sterile.

 

where are we going. how many times. washed by salt

and tides. enter at the sea and come back through the moon.

the wound grows littler. the heart composes a motionless song.

 

the roof begins to leak. good fortune. water released

from a stagnant pool. the land is old and wise. good fortune

in many guises. whatever else flows with the river is inviting me in.

 

orioles and osage orange. sing and persist forever.

the rising and setting orbs are enrobed in its passion.

but we, the living, are denied. fear to face orange eyes.

 

flame is the blossom of all that has lived. whose presence

is required for god and others to perish. to rise. through a prayer

inscribed on a pane of antique glass. flares light older than fire.

 

we will know you've been spoken to. there will be

a sign. come down to breakfast. almost naked.

smelling faintly of honey and bride.

 

a small horse leans into her juniper tree. a lost whisper

recovers its body. love and silence will cut life's thread.

i feel the splinter in my palm burrow on.

 

small apples freeze on the boughs of trees. men hide

their hearts away. she shows me where she died. we

embrace in a dream. the life of spirit obeyed.

 

the world is sky, lake, three men and a killing. it is winter.

deer flying overhead. branches delicate, vibrating.

veins of this world. blood splattered across the snow.

 

old house. last of his line. carries wooden angels with heavy hands.

renews nativity to rend night's ancient skin. iron stove full of life

burning red. knows when to light the candle. knows how to harvest the light.

 

the man who never traveled peels himself from the wall. a body

blossoms inside a body. brushes rain from the clouds. restless

with power. uninhabited colors still remain in the world.

 

she is a pair of migrating swans. of barred owls calling to winter.

sunlight falls on what one needs to know. underground streams

gird the sky. landscape is life is unpunished for being grey.

 

dreams of a wooden box with a hinged lid left in the closet for lives upon lives.

marks time with a calendar of animals. each occupying a window from which one

could serenely leap to earth. studies knots on the face of trees. knows the withering

power that broods deep inside a seed.

 

a catalpa leaf bares its teeth rakes the sunset over and over

until the scent of yellow jasmine is left hanging. from the granary

of murmurs in the heart of a child something once beautiful lifts its head.

 

wine as cunning as blood. to feel you slip from cup 

to mouth. replenished though dawn is long forgotten. 

one drop left behind burns through the space of night.

 

how many are given the power of dream

how many are colors

how many seed

 

mummy song

make your way to light

            body bound and fragrant

mother wind over father sand 

            heart in godly hands

silence leaving shadow sings

 

chestnuts in a bowl left on the table remember the sun

in italy. identical as crows, the families depart. each soul halved

between water and stone. moon above like a disembodied tongue.

 

around one candle the whole of november has gathered.

a lost bird from the dark flutters against the window.

the eyes of the watchers feel like seeds from the oldest branch of night.

 

wears a thin dress on a cold stage. hears the clatter of nothing

falling in the kitchen at midnight. hears each side of absence

crying for help. mothered the child who will receive our dying.

 

instead of the law and the cross a white crow. in wind that shifts

by wind's whim. instead of blood and the last life long chance

clear water. cold as the only forest never felled.

 

face slides off in a november rain. 

spirals round round the swirling drain.

tight roof. sound mind. eternity ingesting its tail.

 

startling cold. a small beach feeds alone.

moonlight floods what memory can't

dismiss. early ice beckons. eyes are closed.

 

a songbird lost to the evening rush. a sorrow

swallowed by the sea. i sit below the slope

next year's spring will climb. one sail thickens the sky.

 

the view from what happens decides there's a road. or a fly

on the wall of winter. all things to be done will be done

over. the dark in a dog set to howl.

 

eventually the child is found and brought to sunlight.

horses grow quiet. the harvest goes on. she dreams the face

of a sleeping lake. no one loves the dark man of her future.

 

there are stains from what has been too much to bear.

soles worn thin. mist obscuring the missing whole.

silence full of stone.

 

old skin. thin.

one can see through it to a future. 

crows feed on the sunflower's eye.

 

the eye is speaking in tears again. visions.

the flock will not awaken until journey's end.

cracks in the ceiling hear footsteps of moss on the roof.

 

a different garden. whose soil is living bone.

for whom the holy will lie. that knows in its heart

it shall be injured. where the child of the wound can be found.

 

hollow in november meadow. dandelion

risking yellow chords. scraps of harvest.

expanse of frost. death proposing future birth.

 

as each sun is secret. the sorrow of light leaks through our roof.

and a garden of yellow sits at the table of our days.

immaculate flowers of silence. a cup of sleeping wine.

 

act of alone. birth to one's self

giving. of mother tree unburdened.

sunlight tumbling. blessed. golden your reign.

 

bridges crow. morning creeps from

under. greets that which has been forgotten.

taste of stars in my mouth. i shall grow a yellow house.

 

a prayer which bleeds each time it prays. whose child is slow,

unfinished, without birth. whose road is empty except for stone.

a small flame flickers beneath the stars. remembering it is lost.

 

a fist of clouds burst the heart. everything in wind

became theft. everywhere was music but silent. how

do broken branches become a vernal cross. and now there is autumn.

 

around a careless noise in the shallow of night

absence and weaknesses pool. does every mouth not listen?

to hear the sighs of flesh dissolve beneath the rusted tongues of bridges.

 

a finger of water circles the earth, taps on rock

near a motionless man. air gently ripped by pines.

injuries without weight. blood on the rock.

 

snow is falling over the past. over the wild

cosmos garden. a silver light holds her feet above

the ground. how much of the moon has she swallowed.

 

autumn homes harvested

soil packed into yellow seed

                        mother leaves

 

water pulls my secrets deep into its pockets.

loves the drowning i do not love. survivor in strange

depths. where not all with eyes are alive.

 

it begins with a november rose. shadows stirring a bowl

of milky blood. wholeness and wild honey die slowly.

remembrance, our permanent home.

 

rain dreams the face of a sleeping lake. mists cross

the fleshy border. a wolf pine raises seven heads.

with splintered fangs. naked strong and ruined.

 

on the first day of life. there is no place that is not

someone else. the moon begins counting its

delicate birds. death stands alone in a field.

 

silence in a poem grows with not one

mystery less than needed. guardian of what

least understands. heart open to all. and to none.

 

moon shining through the corner of an open mouth. a ferris

wheel burning in the garden of night. grandmother looks older

than when she died. the child's eye relives. remembers.

 

leans into the wind examining life for wings.

at the center of being whispers swarm. hands

which cannot stop the little good gone wrong.

 

from a chair in the backyard. a mountain i've never

seen hides the orb that never changes. what happened

to my people who feared the ocean's edge.

 

stars pound on the roof but no one hears.

a lost soul settles to the benthic floor. polished

darkness. weight of silence. have mercy.

 

an oracle's river flows from the sea. water

no one sees. yet i feel a body beneath my feet.

like walking on a snake. cold as the flesh of shadow.

 

home. we are one body since you died. lost melodies

bind us. ancient snowfalls hunt the sky. life's 

fragments gather as windows. white hairs. sleeping child.

 

they get there when. dawn is in the bed

of being someone else. borrow me my life she

had said. small boy. paper walls. strong wind.

 

sunset. everything to be done will

be done over. crises caressed. fear

of the straight path.

***

autumn. burn windows and die with

the rose. time of drowning. last

life long chance.

 

butterflies are mating. tortures go on. metamorphosis

at the crossroads has killed peace. streets walk with their heads

held low. the floor of the ocean is no longer a dream.

 

fixed direction is the disease of roads. but whispers

swarm at the center of being. from artists with winged

hands there is much to learn. of wholeness and wild honey.

 

there is a small boat waiting. in the middle

of the page. where a poem begins. and goes

no further. serenity. the secret never arrives.

 

beneath the old house dim forests grow. black walnut

dreams drop weary shadows. windows flutter and break

against dawn. cold mist frees itself from river.

 

as his lover comes home he thinks about which story.

at the center of a drop of rain is there stillness. is there voice.

the answer is a wound. but so unimportant. and yet he trembles.

 

these hands are like brothers. one weaker than the other.

one loved more. one wields the knife. the other cleans

a small church. we have great admiration for their faith.

 

a divided window dissects the sky. cemetery

plots. canceled mind. nothing falls to earth without

emitting light. dark voice. bruised eyes.

 

 

one by one by one by one. men pass buckets.

the hand counts its fingers. the ocean inventories sand.

nights leave without a dream. suns reappear.

 

kneels to drink. drink your face from the wind.

those waters where absence is kept. deserves the dust

and ashes of your bed. whose night is full of holes.

 

used by pain for joy. by stone and salt for

polish. preferred food of fire. without taking a

backward step. or losing the power to leave one undone.

 

what swims ashore. and what is driven aground.

innocence. balance. the morning star. rainbows

above the wearied dead should not end in gold. tears.

 

some learn to fear the garden. where the rose

was a false flower. messengers enter and leave without

a trace. and the orchid knows in its heart it will be injured.

 

seedling of an exhausted species, whose language can i speak.

word is wind. and sky, windless.

leaves give tongue until their skin burns green.

 

the first dawn is too small to wake

the soul. but an island emerges. eyes

reopen. time feels chilled spilling over skin.

 

every moon in old clothes finds its way

to my room. every scar learning the way of shadow.

we stand together. arrayed like sunflowers. facing the void.

 

the horse comes back alone. but there is 

no alone. no empty bed. no love that is not 

pain. no time to perfect one's art. no horse.

 

small lake. long journey of sky.

sky that sang at the birth of time...

of a blue eye. of a dark day.