my eclipse reveals what the moon is dreaming    the shine of what cannot be gathered

the wound her cheek left on the moon longs to be still alive

the way to see light was once in the sky    and the moon bright with forgetting

little child where the moon hides her blood    passes through my heart

i love when it rains an open sky    mountain silently watching inside

how shall i speak to the fingers of your name as they sow my blood and water

men used as graveyards    nothing left of nothing    my hands unravelling inside

a fire as small as my sleep in your side    is the eye of the heart

the dream outside of me i somehow startled    a brightness i did not do

my light hangs from the sky like death in a hive    like salt opening its hand

blue is brave    like speaking from the space inside a seed    like night on god

child to the thirsty sea    do not teach but draw me

the tenderness of a stem in my mouth :: what cannot be gathered from your eyes

when do we risk becoming a river isn't a question of desire

because the clear song of the sky must be preserved my roof melts away in the cold

when started i was dust    dew filled with moon    fire in an unformed mouth

how did crows in a sky that has never been become the light of the world

we undress together    down to our satchel of lost poems    refusing to be more than alive

a corpse knows nothing about its garden    the way we live is not even dying

the two ends of the sky hang from one stark tree    a day too cold to plant death

yearning for the honey of the sadness of your skin    i give in to the moon in the window

in this garden that grows what cannot be acquired    my darkness quivers with snow

between stone and star i have learned slowly    how on one black wing we spin

in the ear of the cry between sycamore and moon    i open all my windows

my blood is your milk filled with night

those who say there is no one to see    is where every living thing has gone

in a field full of light and death    it grows hard to see the one who will come

winter stars slip into us one by one    the skies of our vanishing grow large

within the rose who never tires    my heart gives birth to many hands

the dying sun stares into my sky as if awakening is near

a small horse leans
into her juniper tree—
no other life but sky

because i also cling to birth
this december sun
is warming

the little river is watching

            and crows that stitch the morning sky

                        and those who have died    but had eyes

dreams that visit when we are most awake :: the snow i bury underground

piece by piece    like the wood i split    to feed flames that are going blind

the inner space of snow is vast and skin—do i hear our yearnings agree?

the eye that always watches you is everywhere i dream

orchid bud swells inside

so many suns crowding the exit

i give birth to a sky that refuses to curve

what i want to say drew

its last breath—

            beheld became what can’t be changed

cut limbs falling

upon awakened ground—

            the silence that follows called wound

the driver of the chestnut mare is waiting like a friend

black cart quiet

the wind you’ve become

today we cleaned the gardens for winter
left smoking piles of disbelief
dug up a crescent moon

i hear the clatter of nothing falling

at midnight in the kitchen—

my wife wakes up, dies

sunlight weeping from her eyes

sat through the storm last night

            wondered where all that rain fell—

tight roof, sound mind, eternity chasing its tail

freshly made, i twist in the wind

            snake skin returning to an earlier molt

            the dark in a dog set to howl

a catalpa leaf bares its teeth, rakes

my face over and over

makes blood flow clear as water

i stand naked in the wind this morning

sky flies backward toward a sun

darker than light can see

like the child up in a tree

staring lost through swarming leaves

your being has entered the dream

squirrel will be killed again yesterday

there on the road—

whose future measured by the number of feeding crows

moon whimpers

harvesters slit the night

father cannot find child in the stubble of the field

the night i wasn’t conceived

still stirs the mind—

blue leaves gently coming loose

the calm face is in another country

another world—

we walk from Ohio to vote for it

the joy of motionless motion

comes after death

when you are the morning every ginkgo leaf falls

traveler sleeps late, hurries away

neighbor outside raking dreams

answer the ringing phone with imbricate possibilities

my face slides off in a November rain

swirls round the circular drain

sucked into the moon

rain before dawn

dawn ends the dream

the rain could be starlings, or not

my skin is old
thin
you can see to anywhere through it

cracks in my ceiling

close themselves to hear

footsteps of moss on the roof

when the fly on the screen

            crawled out of my eye

                        there was an entire world to build

a little sunlight travels

from nowhere outside

lies down in the gutters i clean

one leaf
will be enough
to drain all branches of wind

the act of alone
is giving birth inside me
she holds one ginkgo leaf in her hand

my silent womb
your useless wings
each life leashed to its unreal binding

she stepped into the water
a stone without skin
felt for the first time cold winds

concrete sun sinks into ruin
now my roof leaks the sorrow of light
now we must believe in the sleeping mind

just before dawn the sky is slick with ice
one could fall and die
where wild geese are dreaming

of more than can be borne
there are stains—
how else could we come to be

what belongs in the earth
has been give cold wings
not unlike birth without a sound

so i get here slowly
on footsteps half-finished
a maple leaf torn free in the blast

a neighbor's sweet gum tree was hollow
and those inside said they never heard more
than the barking of the moon

mother's face multiplied
in numberless drops of rain
till she knows what it is i see

a hard and difficult rain drives us outdoors
as small animals in cages
addressed to fire

four crows named Jesus fly
into a neighbor's naked maple tree—
in white skin death wraps me

i look back at my empty shoes
is how flesh
must leave the sea

brought us all to quiet without warning    no hint of eternity or dust

there is sorrow in the way we breathe :: so many suns half-dead in our hands

where my dreams cross the border    the night sky begins again

no moon hurries the dark cloud home    yet ten thousand morrows slide past

outside of sorrow and silence    not all who shine are among the alive

do we know we really never move away—but what if i close the silence

become that that cannot be returned to    lift up what's left of what the dream spoke

you've had the dream of how heaven is    now can you keep it gone forever

the way and the where of the beginning of all    you were given in last night's dream

the eye above Yellow Springs sees in his own way    that being here has nothing inside

future is memory    hunger is flesh—every day since it has rained

the final word knows    but can't tell what's coming    came from dying far away

small as the first house of soul    if small might save the world

going from death to flesh is to be numberless    thus i have come to life utterly alone

the dreamer opens and shuts like an eye    where animals are burning to sleep

because distance is sad and always of love    there is the forest we cannot lay hold of

the smallest island will come home    make nowhere far away

would it be your first howl roaming the loose wind—what makes you listen

moon is when your hands release    what the corpse leaves behind

the moon they are burning everywhere—now how much nowhere is left inside

from the other side of the light you left    are your windows heavy with snow

river reach    where trout hear me breathe    a deep to follow

inside out of echo :: mother of beings i do not know

moon undressed    the man i lost    looked at naked me

blood rising from the smoke of the man i was :: i'll be back in another memory

all things go on in the track left by dust    thus i feel where the dry country wails