Hushed whisper through

sylvan leaves

Cast swift through brook

past hoary fur

and chitter-chatter claws

Blue Jay names it

to the sky:

'Trouble! Trouble! Trouble!'

When dawn was new

King's first ascent

he called you

Little bird, he called you

Your clarion cry

his trumpet

thin and brilliant

Your notes to fill

the silent awe

wake the sleepers

locked stony in the dirt

who knew no sound

until your song



They call you back

Beast and stone and air

Call you and you

don't come

The dawn is breaking over the hills.
I sit, poorly managed, on the edge of my porch
to watch the sun climb. The first edge, now.
Just a hint against the lowest curves of the horizon.
Silence around, before the birds begin to call
for love and lost children. Light is piercing my pearl-grey sky,
dawn's mist fading away.
Soon the sun will warm dark hair, soft skin
but not the bones;
no, not my bones,
where wet has sunk cold and shivering
to damp the marrow heart of them.
The birds start to sing. I sip my coffee
hot enough to scald.

The air of summer is

cotton cooling in the house

sweet grasses

and

a friend napping in the sun

while yellow bee crawls unnoticed

across pillowed arms

When God sings
the birds fall silent;
to listen,
then boast how
they would have sung it
better.

Morpheus dreams of
empty cities
and well made beds.

DEAR DEAREST:

Do you remember?
You had dreams once,
When time lived forever
And phosphorescent burning trees
Carried you
Through landscapes floating beyond
The places you called Home

You jumped, entwined
And broiling
While suns died
In the livid sky-
Followed the wavering form
That called to heart strings
And shifted the inner tides

Dearest, do you remember?

The beating bright
Left burning, dim,
In the dark spaces you forgot
Waiting in the back
Of your mind

The music
That strains wild
Across eons and
Spaces and pages of notebooks you used to keep
When thoughts were thought
Worth the saving

It brightened the hazy edge
Of every waking desire

And oh,
The Colors-
Jewel tone wings
tipped birds cast in
Gold and crystal-
Green veins
Opened, oozed sweet and
Waxy and clean-
Blues dripped from the sky into
Bleeding fires, molten lights-
Broke you down and
Filled you up
With flames

They had texture,
The colors you have no name for

Nothing is so brilliant anymore


Do not forget,
Dearest;

The blinding light,
The final song;
The fire in your blood
That roars against the quiet
Moments of the day

Your light is fading now
Empty is filling you up.

So cling-
To tangled passions
And wicked dreams,
The heaving cacophony
Exploding immortal
At the edges of bliss-

Cling, cling, cling-


Before reality is all you have to hold
Against the dimming candle that
Lights your world