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

falling at midnight in the kitchen. 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.

 

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 beautiful lifts its head.

 

startling cold. a small beach feeds alone.

moonlight floods what memory can't

dismiss. early ice beckons when 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. a sailboat 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.

 

the night you are not conceived silent messengers

come and go. as if a dark cathedral better houses the moon.

until the morning every ginkgo leaf falls.

 

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.