Dance

It’s far too late
for second spring,
and he has done
with wooing.

You and I
will always watch
from outside,
cool cheeks against
the cool glass,
to see
young love’s
dance –
sickened
by the sweetly
descending lilacs
carried on waves
of early heat.

Make a medicine
of alone
and relish it –
not for any mindfulness
it might deliver,
but simply
for relief
at the lack of effort
it needs.

Long ago
we tripped
among headstones –
every thing
a portent.
Now we haunt them
with eyes
that can’t bear to look
or to look away.

Three crows laugh
from a shriveled oak.
They, too,
have given up spring.
And lovers
continue the waltz –
warm cheek to warm cheek –
wholly oblivious
to the other side
of the glass.

Communion

She brings the cup,
makes herself irresistible
in ways I never could master.
Time’s crumbling cathedrals
make us wary
of the dangers
of misplaced faith.

And who is to choose
which communion
is most holy?

You kneel at the rail –
drink from the golden cup.

You kneel at her bed –
drink from the golden hips.

The holy blood and flesh,
the sacred cunt –
what tyrannical god
could ever demand a choice?

And how could you do otherwise
in the face of their
grim and misleading authority,
but listen to the deep-voiced
mystic wind and world –
and let it lead you
to right?

Secret

We do not do
the good we want.
Bury the seeds
deeper than deep,
and let the growing
glowing green
uplift our eyes.

We have no tools
to disconnect
gravity’s tether.
All the artifacts
we unearth
fail to confirm
our theories.
So we give up
the excavation.

And we never were
much good
at naked truthtelling
or adorning sleeves
with bloodied and battered hearts.
No.

Our skills
were ever thus –
carving out deep holes
beneath the waking earth
in which to hide,
pushing for growth
unseen
in the dark places,
and solitary celebrations.
And always –
above the ground,
upon it
or below it –
we worshipped
these sins
of omission.

Escape

I seek a strength
I’ve never known,
and the wisdom
of putting by.
All healing’s found
in the lovely alone,
and for a minute
you don’t matter.
Let them go on,
the sun says,
and I will be
your lover now.

We walk into the weeds,
dropping all
the battered
bindings of winter.
And he is slow,
careful,
touching sweet
every shadowed thing
that remains.

Light and green as spring,
I watch the mute swan,
stark and white,
delicately arched
above the water
that is always going
away to the crabapples
in flower –
I stalk the beauty
of keeping silence,
and I am filled with it.

Still, there is a tugging
all down my legs,
as I try to get up
out of these roots,
reaching skyward
with the world,
if only in passing
through it.

Arrange thoughts,
arrange dreams,
arrange feelings
and imaginings –
an effort required
before leaving the ground –
and try to let go
the worry
of what will come –
all the seductive
heavy darkness
of my provocateur.

In the ninth place

Day approaches.
And dirt
smells sweet
so we seek
to sink.

Bury my mouth
that my words
might be silent.

Bury my heart
that it might remain
untouched.

Bury my hands
that they might
not mend.

Bury my wisdom
that I might
not know.

We no longer bother
with a counting
of years.

Let them roll
deep beneath the dirt
down to the bedrock below.

No turning back.
Not now.

And I am sorry
that it goes too slow.

And I am sorry
that it goes so fast.

Volunteer

A snake in the path,
we keep to the weeds,
and the old orchard’s awake.
We grow drunk as blossoms
take to the breeze.

And the pipers
line up to play
and make their claims.
The sun lays everything bare,
making it harder to hide.

My heart is a seed –
a volunteer –
and you are
a damn fine gardener.
And maybe you like a surprise.

I’m down and running
under the new green grass.
On my knees to make pay
in the new green grass.
There’s no other sweet left to sell.

And they come with scythes,
the grim choir of pipers.
You cultivate a shadow
in which I might hide –
but they wait it out.

It shortens, and they begin.
Collect a bone.
Collect a bundle of nerves.
Collect vessels full of blood.
Collect my sunblind eyes.

Still, the hidden root goes deep,
and we master the alchemy
of wind, water and light
to bring forth from it
something stronger than before.

Temple

She said it was toxic –
a lonely brew,
poison and the unreal,
unbound and in danger
from the upward current –
and already I owe
such a debt of days.

There is
no amount of blood
can save me
from myself.
Bottle it
and put it in a box –
with all I can’t discard.
Add it to
everything dropped
all along the way.

How we make do
with this diminishing
is a mystery –
an erosion
that carries away
but reveals
layered remnants,
four decades’ worth.

Today I want
neither her words
nor her bitter medicines.
We operate
without a diagnosis –
feel the feeling
then cut it loose.
Send it off
with those bottles
of blood.

When the sun comes back
it will burn off
what’s amiss.
And you and I,
we can ride out
all intermittent darkness.
Like these days,
like these dreams,
it will pass.

Ask

So many swallows,
and the warblers are back.
This morning is
outside of time.
I close my eyes,
and you ask the questions.

It is a waking day,
a celebration day –
hints of summer
in the blessing sun.
I open my eyes,
and don’t know how to answer.

We grow serious
among the frolic.
I would give you all three,
but fear such tests of truth.
So instead,
I hold your dirty hands.

And I promise
I will not ask you
what you wish for,
if you promise
not to ask me
who is my muse.

tiny pleasures

…sleeping without socks, dirt between toes, muddy knees, wolf spider on my hand, pause to breathe and drum the heart, soprano voice of childhood from the backseat, a birthday song, carry me, windows down, turn it up, wet eyes, imagined eyes, three, reflect the sky…

Strange Light

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