the road back to dark    or dawn

is everything—and innermost

and these are the last few undisputed miles:

a slow moon plows the sky above

            cornstalks shiver in the grid of night

and a small boy falls from his private tree

            as the face that made his world

looks away

the moon we separated from

            massive, tired      lost on the beach

where i wanted to walk alone

i walked from my dream

            through tall brilliant grasses

i walked from my dream

            into the place where we lie

the whole universe is here    disappears

            and

when the waters come again

we are no longer separate centers

            we are as naked as the mystery of night

as one small body

            at the edge of fear

in a hollow of the moon

it is delicious to be long away

from the face closed in a rose

it is delicious to reject the mansions

entrusted to never forget

it is delicious to wear the pure robe

in which god knelt down

to embrace a childhood     open to death

we need these desires     

the full moon

feeds on

the warmth in my blood is a lifetime of knives

quarrels with the moon, magnificent

the warmth in my blood is a delight

though i have doubts    i weigh and decide about other’s lives

no idea of existence puts color in my cheeks

this blood has some light from the birth of the sky:

those in the towers    left behind

the ocean parted from its farthest shore

beneath a pearl of light that failed to march with time

the day comes when the shadows throw down their dancers

            and a bell rising to the wind spins out of one’s life

how long is a lifetime in the labyrinth raised by death

            how long is a dream to the sleepers who lose their way

around the spark of night gather those who know existence

            where next in the web will i become

the sun of this day bleeds to death

            for the lives no man thinks of

snow fall across the mountains of the moon

            as moist and steamy as the newly dead

and there begins a silence

            that reaches so deep   it answers itself

i would rise to you    crows and black vultures

and lie on the shores of your air, if i could

i want tides to wade through me until i am the frail and unfinished poet

i want to write down the flaws of the sycamore

who is it i hear crying in the silence of strange bodies

who is it i hear weeping in the places you have been

there is a shadow across the vision i was close to once

when the horizon between worlds had been crossed

a poem that holds its breath    is how one grows

the tiny ground one stands on

that could be a grave

wakefulness returns    with the inrush of air into kingdoms starved of light

wakefulness returns    with rain-filled apples reaching for the hands of god

wakefulness returns    when the face you could not grasp rises from its seed

wakefulness restored

i died as a child

in a light that was missing

in a light held by tunnels

toward a birth left behind

toward the cold and the silence

stretched out and waiting

am i rising or falling

i lived as a child

by a dark hole in the wind

the wind of huge trees

in the roots of the corn

toward the silence and the cold

stretched out and waiting

i am falling and rising

i still feel the weight of the hand

lifting stones from the waves

setting waves on the scale

when we were children in the world

and the darkness seething

round each candle-lit face

was heavy with hope

            i

i hear wings

uncertain if they know delight—

black sounds calling across the lake of the eye

            ii

in the meadow of the eye

i tremble without moving

in dreams that feel like snow

            iii

and while the true eye

that asks for nothing

keeps watch beneath the moss

i cool the ashes of my wounds

in dew

from the source

uprising

birth is the hunger

one eats alone

—and a poor red cardinal

as broken as the sea

            without a song

            maybe wingless

is the only seed given

to the child

heron    blue

from the cave of the moon

guide

to the dimensions of winter stillness

naked path of grace

that leaves one lost in the sky

a way of life that is too narrow

fits me

the way white thirst matches

                                                holes in the sky

the way death

            and the not yet real

mingle equally within the living body

the light sinks down in mud
            now darkness can open new doors
now the secret horizons i saw as a child shall return