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I found a worker
bee
drowning upside
down
thrashing in a
birdbath
was I to believe
this
was important I
gave
him my finger to
crawl
up onto the rim
dripping and turning
in circles dazed
shaking
the water from
his shame
his indignity at
having fallen in
so I went on
sweeping
trying not to
notice
thinking
whatever bee
by this time
hasn’t
found a home
will not
ever in December
thinking that
was no fall
that was a suicide
attempt
but by the time
I got there
he had already flown
Years later I
discovered I
had been living
in a crouched
marsupial
position
but that all
changed
in a single day
in a single look
and no one could
remember
my former life
or hold it
against me
I was free of
all that
in reach of you
Not seeing
a soul in
someone else
is the root
of all the creepiness
on the earth
not to have
fought
one’s way to
feeling
past oneself
is behind all
that would end
us
if we would be
ended
and our earth’s
great quest
to become a sun
with its very
own
complicated planetary
system and everything
go down Satan’s
black hole of
boredom
and disdain
Always the world
is near
but the gods
evade us
have already
been here
and moved on
and their woods
have moved on
the varieties of
longing
the trees stood
for gone
the caves and
temples
of stone the
talents
of their
earliest years
lost if not carried
through one can’t
go back to one’s
first surrender
if after all
it was
everything
Still the
fathers bring death
to kill the
sons
but the sons
overcome
them in the end
with new life
and one star sails
through a hole
in the clouds
to renew our hopes
in the
nothingness
through which
still unsolved
we come and go
What suffering love
has in store for us
as part of its
plan
for self-science
and the
alonenesses
at the heart of
being
specifically
you through which
everything else
is poured the
drunkenness of
it
as opposed to
the
sobriety of
friendship
in which need is
transmuted into
the gold coins I take
if
you would cross over
I can’t say
if I’m a poet
that would be
presumptuous
disrespectful
it would be
like calling
myself a hero
or a curandero
why would I want
to
I would have to
be delusional
in delightful
or arresting
ways and what
I cannot tell
you
I would be
compelled to
blurt out
finally
in the most
inexplicable
words
every day what
I dreamt for
every night
Like a huge bell
thrown into the
Grand
Canyon and
bouncing
around hundreds
of
times before it completely
shatters and
comes to
several kinds of
rest
it’s crisp
outside
but if you’re in
the sun
it’s perfectly
hot and
cold in
different places
on your body
that bell
To use my phone
early tomorrow morning
you stay
overnight
but sleep in and
miss
the time window
and
so you have to
stay over
that night too
but sleep in
again
and every day thereafter
you manage to
stay
we laugh and eat
and
walk around the
lake
or go for coffee
argue and read
as if this was
the life
I wanted as we
did
Today’s real
knowledge
is tomorrow’s
fairytale
so I must tell
you quickly
about today
before
it is no more
it’s no fable
though
permeated with
magic
as you already know
what happens
inside
the pomegranate
tree
and the orange tree
what the clouds
are saying
to me as they
slow
the magic down
to intolerable
levels
this lovely day
how the sun runs
through
my veins and
down
the street searching
to
tell you about it still
An orange before
its time
is yellow and
before that
green as a lime
how did they go
on
growing past the
lemon stage
the first ones
who had
the crazy idea
to be sweet
Everything’s
more formal
as darkness
descends
the diplomacy of
disinterest
must also take its
place
while everyone
stands and waits
until he’s
seated
slowly into his throne
thoughts go off
like birds
into the west
but the feelings
stay behind
unborn on the
shore
they are all
that keep us on
the earth
You never listen
to me
I listen to no
one else
otherwise quiet
morning
the rain barrel
is full
clear all the
way to the bottom
where the muck
is sleeping
I can’t believe
this tree
makes so many
forests
but nobody wants
them
and to think the
birds regard us
as finished
objects
their lives are
so brief
I need a new
nose-warmer
now that you’re gone
ants come for
the crushed snails
you left in your
wake
I admire the
courage
of those who
accept death
as the end of
life and believe
we’re finally
never seen again
but it seems a
Pyrrhic courage
or wasteful Stoicism
to me
if they’re mistaken
and yet in a way
maybe
it’s right to be
brave
in the face of
extinction
along with
everything else
for that too
exists
after which
nothing
is the same
Echoing but not
beginning
hanging in the
air
yesterday’s dead
morning is for
mourning
I finally
figured it out
but it kept on
weeping
apparently I was
what
it wept about
sparrows for
commas
the it
paper-thin
on which the I
was scribbling
leaving no
impression
slowly the storm
retreated
like Genghis
Khan from Vienna
when a saint
showed up
think how often
everything’s
over
yet it never ends
After a long
night’s rain
snails climb the
walls
to eat the paint
or what
pulling their
unicorn horns
along behind
them
spiraling back
inside
when touched and
dropping to the
ground
and the cowbird
with
his hooked beak
flings
the gravel everywhere
digging for grubs
or
worms while the
barrel
cactus drowns in
his own
saucer full of
rain where
the lawn chairs lie
plastered
with yellow
leaves and
the limestone
angel’s head’s
really looking
green this time
Fluttering
classical sleeve
invisible arm
geese waving
goodbye
do you remember
the three
drops of blood
on the snow
pesky sparrows
ate them
a goose in an
epic
is like the
three in magic
the end of the
tragic
a bag of morning
glory seeds
is burning a
hole
in my rocket
I intend to
climb one
and bring you
back
the swoon
That you can
still fly
on one wing
old leaf
brown sparrows
brown fruit
hanging
slight
differences
the earth my
lover
all these years
secretly
except for that
one affair
I ruined you it
us
vengeful confession
but you’re a
saint
you keep
forgiving me
taking me back
and back
O mama throw me
from this plane
of consciousness
everything asks
some more unconscious
than others of a
sense
of the
inflection as coarse
in the speech of
things
we go in all
liquid impulse
but when we’re
cooked
a breeze smooths
our petals
or leaves ruffle
our breath
mostly we want
to know
how there’s so
little tenderness
after so much
time
It’s clear the
trees
have always been
asleep
and the plants it’s
their nature to
dream
and the animals they’re
awake but lost in
a trance
of instinct and
smells
and we human
beings
learned to think
though
mainly about
ourselves
but those who’ve
gone on
to the place
without bodies
wake up inside
the dream
of all of this
every day and night
(the plants and
animals and us)
and put on their
dancing shoes
if they’ve
remembered to bring them
and can't wait for us to join them
