I did want to do it with dead flowers
the pressings of leaving here—
flowers made of truths held openly in front
from a  fallow field  left to nettles,
the broken pebbles hammered by a vengeful sun.
I plucked it up, plucked the good root
of all our great hopes and best dreams  
and watched my life parch, shrivel and die in my hands
and heard her cry out
as if this left her incomplete,
clutching nightmares in her small arms.

he knows the earth beyond all
seeds

the earth
that is untroubled

in the scorch of afternoon
light

the petals
of the angry sun

On the white dry limbs of the sycamore, disrobing
bark etiolated in spring flash, three doves roost.  

“Peace,” they coo to the desire of my heart
to calm the violent world so like
the Lord’s small ship in the tempest ere
the rebuke of wind, sea, the faithless in their fear.

I will be kind.  Spread soothing balm
over the skin once pierced by thorns and
the white scars opened in bath water, on sheets-
the unknowns, red under the sycamores.

The ark doves cast the waters, one roosts the cross,
becoming a miracle if watched too closely
until fluttering wings burst it beyond symbols.
The world exists neither parched nor flooded, only
benefiting when sun and rain fall in good time.

The message flies everywhere further than what
I gave, circling calm and slow in every breeze.
I watch the three doves return to the
hallow ease that prods them to make their nest
on the white dry limbs of the sycamore.

The clocks leap forward and I fall back
looking for you to return from dust
blessedly
at the stroke of two this night.
¡Despiértate!  (Wake up!)
Es muy muy tarde Madre Mia. (It’s very very late My Mother.)
Gather yourself.
School is over and it is time,
not too too late for you
to teach that old song
and stay forever.

She knows the winds in the circles of all that’s around her.
The funnel is as twisted as the screaming man on the wall
                 hanging in the serenity of white space,
                          crosses and orbs flying up like
                             zephyr elms.  Her face
                              breaching its anvil.
                           Her little brick house
                             pirouetting behind,
                                until her town,
                               she is totally lost,
                                until it’s her
                       and the circle is her
                 and the flood, the storm.
            She breathes its screech over
      everything it rushes and destroys.
Can we live in the force of one wind for the whole of a life?
Does the sun gaze down and hunger for the grounded light?

When I die fill
                       my memory jug with things my mother loved.
Leave out her tears, the shivering in the rain.
                            That heart on the silver cross,
keep it,
the scrap she wrote my future name on,
                                     the ink footprints on my
baptismal certificate. But not the bandage
                     from my first stand and step and fall,
her blowing whispers in my ear to see if I
                                     can hear after the fever,
for those are tears  
and this jug has no room for
                                    oceans of such sadnesses
and grief.  
Make room for the things I’ve seen
                                                 clearly in the dark:
a frame of Mifune with sword,
                          E.T. phoning home with a gold
finger
and a happy heart light that beats right here,
                                           Dances With Wolves,
Gone
in 60 Seconds,
    tickets to hand shadow play and future love.
Line the jug with lead to keep
                                    X-rays revealing  true dark. Stash an LSD tattoo
                                            lest I desire a bad trip
far far away from heaven.
                                                 Place the draft card
torn up
on a broken hearing aid.
Put no cancer recovery card, test strips inside.
                                    I am not just my diseases
and will not cling to their memories.
                                              Be glad I am gone
if that is how you’re  bent.
               Remove that one small thing you think
I stole,
replace with a pinch of dirt or ash
   from the graves or urns of those I loved dear,
a wax
seal for this little jug for you of me
                                                            pr­oclaiming a
Thank You
                 God, Mother, Father for creating me.

The eagle
brushstroked black
talons to beak
broke red blue  
in the white sky
tiny scarlet prey
fought and died
in once soft grasp
matron touch
a child freely
loved plumped fed and feathered
in aerie
tall safe high from
screech and whoop
the drop to the
loops of barbed wire below