and yet who has noticed how the one left behind becomes the final light

how near to what my heart has done is the warmth of the stranger's mouth

why the sky wanders has never been born

who will guide us through the days ahead    is to live newly awakened

the sleeper under the pine remembers what is young    the dark that steps out at dawn

the way the last walk hurries grass    is where the ash of the rose will fall

silence into water into blood into light    is to ask a simple question

how old shall we be when the white sail of the moon leads October through everlasting change

what if the other side of humankind is only thinner air

if you have made me small enough   the whirl wind must

what has died is kept in this city in ginkgos along the streets

the memory i left in another place    is it destroyed, or sleeping

a night train rises up inside of sleep    carrying the one left behind when we were born

year after year of pokeberries :: their ripening barely heard

in the pure mist of a distant mountain    the nest not seen for years

when night is full of holes    will i see what is in me from the first day of living

can a pine from the sea ever fall to the earth

if light is grave and motionless there is no distance to lying down

what i do not have looks for me :: and there is no place that is not someone else

time has come for that bit of life gone missing to turn my cornfields pale

windowpanes across a whole life overlooking the mists and cliff

even a heart in the hands of its children will grow snowy white

does the rainbow over the weak of the earth end in iron

on the eve of the blue why do violets grieve

though the water is down on its knees :: many pass in a dry rain

my heart walks in sunlight and feels itself fade—
while chimes turn wind
into creation

from my window i studied mulberry branches—
             dormant rhythms of nights and days,
of unrepeatable worlds to be

the sole of the foot
treads on beauty—
those smooth tracks
across the sea
i couldn't
have made and
cannot follow

under other skies
            is there deeper longing
for the damp electricity from which we come

i hear the blood ask us
                         if we are alive—
the heart remembering what it does not recognize

      Vanishing points


where the apple tree rose
            from the earth
when i learned to live as a soul

a memory that opens the road is what we want :: honey drawn raw from the moon

when the windows of the bonfire seethed open :: not one of my old failures was there

that hollow in the west where the sun dissolves :: salt gathering in the ripples of life

winds hang silent and limp in the rain :: lives lived without having happened

in the weariness of spring :: all my fences fell asleep :: the unknown began speaking to its neighbor

the cup of my tulip is infinitely deep :: blood islands floating through murmurs of light

grasses of eternity grow over my roof :: a message drifts through the sky

morning flew away with wings that never crossed a dream :: morning left standing in rain

...and the hands of white orchids have no other purpose :: than to lose themselves in the heart 

my name is the hammering which never ceases :: a secret with wings that knows no rest

what no one was interested in (a death in which)
                                                         gave him a way of being (the music keeps playing)

don't yellow sands and lost bones know the world ends without grief

there is a tulip here in the darkness :: no moon to stand beneath

how will you feed the flames of spring

you and i awash in sleep
            while winds rise and fall
carrying fire, and the place the fire was

i have a dream i've watched
            compose itself slowly—
                        the one who builds her nest from dawn

all the room in the world
            is a grain of stillness—
                        the life that comes to life when the last word is spoken

       reach into the space of  your wanting—
a soul there, stretched across dark water
       and no consciousness of beginning over

a seed in the soil doesn't know it has eyes
           but you, suspended in air, use
                       your eyes to deny the invisible

are the clouds towering over you
           those gliding across the surface
                      of the waters beneath your breath

deep is the right place to be
           in the dark, sweet kernel
where your suns are gathering their warmth

this is the hour my heart fell from the sky—
           the moon less than full, but reaching, and
the eyes of the sleepers like seeds

all day,
            winds foaming over the roof of my house
how my heart is filled
                        with tiredness
             of a runner who does not have to run

a thread of green
           begins the plowing
                                  and your heart is beating away

everything is wind
          if you listen closely
                    you can become the wind again

in the time it takes
      for music to enter the chimes
           buds of the sky swell open

what nothing can lift 
           gradually lifts its wings 
why there is radiance within your eyes

why did i wake up where i had never been?

answered the wisest hunter of meaning

in you there is proof :: life has the power :: to be where it had not been

what one unearths :: is the dream in the blood :: a black stone in the hollow where we play

is it the moon in an ecstasy of mist :: or my life swimming beside me

what i was :: only moments before :: the rain lost its way to the sky