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The cat strolls back so
proudly
Two brown leaves stuck to
her tail
Little flags of misery and
defeat
She has fish to eat
tonight
But wants the bird
Me the one word
That would catch the thing
Delicate and final
But we just can’t take it
The form freedom assumes
Seems often distasteful
Abrupt unkind
Her crashing
Into the bush
Some tasty poem in mind
In the rising and the
falling names
We give things to contain
Our panic and reserve
In defense of the bribes
Time nicely offer us
Not to live our lives
But to be too serious
Or not serious enough
If everything is holy
Awake but to what glory
But ourselves
In our collective body
Separated at birth
From his mother
And her father
With a head full of Fritillaries
And another fifteen in the
yard
Swarming the passion vine
I drop off my body
And leave it in the chair
Lifted into the other side
of the air
By bright orange wings
Like an enormous courage
Interpenetrating everything
Even the voices of the
dead
Surrounding the sacred
vine
Grow quiet for a time
To hear those wings
Beat like a heart
Inside them once again
Every embrace can’t be
A spinal adjustment
Some must remain fragile
as flowers
The way you would hold
The spine of a flower
And I would know it was me
At my darkest hour
Holding my last air
In your delicate throat
Not breathing so I
Could go on breathing
You would say
But it’s not possible to
love
Because love
Gives everything away
The harsh black bird
Lands in my yard
His prayer is hard
A squawk the heart has
heard
Before an inward screech
Grinding the world to a
halt
A silent fatal blow
No one else notices in
passing
The heart un-pierced
But the body left hanging
A hole in its side
Where things go wrong
Stay open o heart
To his inclement song
It is long not long
The Buddha is the last one
You have to talk to
About peace and
consolation
The Christ is the last one
You have to know
About the bliss of justice
Which is another way
Of saying love
Thy neighbor etc.
And I’m the last one
To be notifying you of
this only
When every other attempt
has failed
Because I fear for you
My other as I know
You fear for me
Beauty is some spiritual
competence
To have created the body
Out of its own rhythm and
form
So one is startled-struck
Touched unmistakably by it
By something similar
inside
When beauty calls to
beauty
Her unfaithful lover
With promises of return
But time’s the
superstitious one
Full of resonance
And romantic loss
Which only softens us up
For beauty’s
Penultimate blow
As at the equator
The sun stays put
Just above the sea
In the center of the
picture
I hold in my head
While here outside
It’s the same old yard
Getting ready
To be desert again
I try to be the fulcrum
And let the sea rest
Onto my shoulders and arms
Like some old-world monk
Yoked with pails of water
For some flower
All I have to do today
Is fill the hummingbird
feeder
And replenish the birdbath
If I ponder the fate
Of the heavily-burdened
My heart continues to
break
I reach out my virtual
hands
To grasp the helplessness
of the morning
The austere things that
need doing
Rescuing one thing
I knock over another
By noon the garden asks me
to leave
Even indoors the rooms
tell me
I’m not needed
Though I know it’s a lie
We’re still young kids to
history
When there have already been
So many boys and girls on
the earth
You’d think by now
We’d have learned to grow
up
More successfully into one
another
That we’d see we’re not
the same
But hold everything in
trust
So nothing is unimportant
But incomplete in
different ways
And sick with the same
longing
And pride in need of
healing
You’d think the sun would
have returned
To the earth by now
So the earth could begin to glow
It is what it is
It is what it isn’t
You decide
Praying is kneeling at the
door
In gratitude for what
One has already received
But meditation is knocking
And entering
Learning to be at home
As much as with the dead
As with the living
Seeing what angels see
When they look at us
With their endless
compassion
And patient impatience
The long melodrama of
materialism
Struggling not to be
re-dreamed
By another morning
By the holy spirit of
morning
So solemn and discrete
Setting every twig on fire
What language are you
speaking
Proprietary and
patronizing
Dim music of the spheres
As if morning didn’t own
us
As if the sun wasn’t our
first step
Into these bodies of flesh
and blood
Fresh with new ideas old
despairs
Out of those other worlds
Of dreaming light
Half of this leaf is green
Half is dry and brown
Coming and going
Coming to the earth
And going from the earth
The two kinds of debt
What one loans from the
other
Paid back with double
interest
For death and the freedom
to grow
On the green half I write
my name
On the brown half I
scratch it out
I pay as much as I can
Rich as the earth is
Poor as the earth is
Coming and going
Perfect perfect
I hear my neighbor cry
To his wife
In the early morning
Off to work their wheels
Kiss softly down the alley
I feel like five
Watching through the fence
The school kid’s recess
I did and didn’t
Want to join them
Something always held me
back
The perfect hush
Humming in the school yard
When they had all gone in
I feel the rage
I feel the joy
I keep moving
Writhing in pain
Or shaking with laughter
I keep moving
Sometimes it looks like
swimming
Sometimes it looks like
drowning
I keep moving up and down
But when for you I stopped
moving
I became something
permanent
In your seeing me
I took on solidity and
form
A dancing body wrapped
around
An immovable heart
Perfect perfect
I hear my neighbor cry
To his wife
In the early morning
Off to work their wheels
Kiss softly down the alley
I feel at five
Watching through the fence
The school kids' recess
I did and didn’t
Want to join them
Something always held me
back
This perfect hush
Humming in the school yard
When they had all gone in
The little Verdin
Humiliates the cat
However we get trapped
In some fiction
We keep wrangling
Out of it
The tortured truth
Always seems to master
Its evasions strategically
Placing its king and pawn
Back in alignment
With the little Verdin
While the cat watches and
waits
For it all to come
together
In its warning song
Two butterflies fell
To the ground together
I couldn’t tell
If fighting or mating
Or if one was licking
The other clean
The way horses do
Getting it to stand and
breath
Still wet from its
emergence
Letting it absorb
The whole idea of flight
And that the wind is up
today
That it must loiter here
in the dirt
Until its wings
Say when
If you fold over the map
Of how far we’ve come
You have the future half
I think therefore
God exists
But now I must construct
him
Out of little strands of
dirt
And many beatings
Received calmly
He is a true garden
Of wounds
That bleed bluish flowers
Human flowers
That must go on
To breed a God
The sweet destiny of
planet earth
Is right before our eyes
Only here does
resurrection
Finally get to happen
But who would believe
Such a simple premise
The constant rushing to a
grave
To find nothing in it
But overwhelming loss
Faithless spring’s young
gardener
As if we peered
Into another world
But we can’t believe our
eyes
When a child is born
We must put our hands in
its side
