i think that people take their love for granted
because i—
i’ve spent every waking night
of every aching month
dressed in every shade of you except your touch
i love and lose and hurt
and lust
your memory cannot sustain—your memory
is not enough—
to simply have your presence is the
thing for which i blow—
on candles
angel numbers, dandelions—even snow

and why, i always wonder
do so many that i know
take their love nearby for granted—
that’s one thing i’ll never know

I’ve laid in the fields of our dying mother


watching as our gods wither into an  epoch  


masses set out to remember


but in time when stripped of their flesh


all will be forgotten


as they are  exposed to their mortality

668

“Nature” is what we see—
The Hill—the Afternoon—
Squirrel—Eclipse—the Bumble bee—
Nay—Nature is Heaven—
Nature is what we hear—
The Bobolink—the Sea—
Thunder—the Cricket—
Nay—Nature is Harmony—
Nature is what we know—
Yet have no art to say—
So impotent Our Wisdom is
To her Simplicity.

Sweet Love,— but oh! most dread Desire of Love
Life-thwarted. Linked in gyves I saw them stand,
Love shackled with Vain-longing, hand to hand:
And one was eyed as the blue vault above:
But hope tempestuous like a fire-cloud hove
I’ the other s gaze, even as in his whose wand
Vainly all night with spell-wrought power has spann’d
The unyielding caves of some deep treasure-trove.

Also his lips, two writhen flakes of flame,
Made moan: ‘Alas O Love, thus leashed with me!
Wing-footed thou, wing-shouldered, once born free:
And I, thy cowering self, in chains grown tame,
Bound to thy body and soul, named with thy name,
Life’s iron heart, even Love’s Fatality.’