Continuing

How far does the sound
of one birds open ended warble reach
if nothing is solid
and the air is filled with continuing?

If every cell is a tilted domino
leaning into the next
then I am the last word of your conversation
and the beginning of your next.

If memory were long enough to fill this presence
If the same invisible verb
that whispers bloom to the rose
And dawn to my eyes were a noun I could touch

If this ink in my pen
is the breath of a child
in his mother's love
then language is feeling
and words are hollow cups
poured and pouring.

And this bottomless fear
the one that fits inside every separation
cannot cap this sky
still I count stars
like breadcrumbs across every darkness
feeling the pressure of grace
outgrowing limitation
my future already turning inside the heart
of one who holds me close
the one whose name secretly frames forever
the one who balances the clock I break
between sunrise and sunset.

Every thread of distinction
between you and I
is a safety net.

Undissolved sugar
at the bottom of a drink
we stir
and stir
continuing like breath through sleep
in a country the body has no geography for.

This glass moment
slipping from outline
this full fragrant prayer
exhaled in one nights glory
is a beheaded love
carried everywhere the wind blows . . .

How can we breathe this miracle
and remain ordinary
hold ourselves
in a state of unscented captivity
drown in the shallow end
of questions we can't seem to touch
the bottom of.

back to the top

With You

The way the suns warmth
makes leaves shutter
a million miles away

I want that with you.

I want the translation
lengthening in a seed
when earths dark night will not release it

the headless splendor
of instinct
unlike any human tarring
pushing through bark.

Is there any other way
to want you more
than
turn that burning color
just before
leaves fall

let loose the branch
without a flutter
land completely earth
kissing the ground
with your lips.

back to the top

February 3, 2008

I imagine
when sheep graze
with their even appetites
what it must be like to crave
the entire field;

a thousand blades
all questioning
how
to get inside the rain

falling
the way a child whose heart
has never broken loves
without a definition.

back to the top

Wanting

What part of me is it
that you are wanting . . .
Or is it that the whole of wanting
inside of me
is you?

back to the top

December 16, 2007

Strength is made not of one sureness
but of many thin uncertainties
twisted one into the other
question overlapping question
unable yet to bear the weight of answers.

Only over time
does something as sure as rope
recognize gradual tension
the weightless unraveling
of balloon tails
carried away.

back to the top

February 28, 2007

There would be nothing between us
if this skin were to disappear
if this boat were to vanish

No motion but your presence
dreaming into the arch
of your weight
each breath
a wave come to rest
at the back of my neck
your arms the shore
where I crash

spilling
spilling
this hourglass
you tip.

back to the top

January 16, 2005

It's in the little deaths
turning from the sun
in the fallen stars glistening
on the left hand of love
that the body learns
to mimic separation
through an undefined union
with a hurricane whose center
dreams sleeplessly inside us
in the coming true of things.

back to the top