On Monday there is rain,
A mother I wanted to know
Smokes Marlboros while
We wait for our children,
'The red hair is from her father,'
She says,
But doesn't mention her own gift
My daughter drags her coat,
Asks me when will I die
'When I'm done bending,' I say,
'When the final teaching
Is to look down
And thank the bitter root.'

Blackbird sing, a horizon all your own,
A morning with no veil, dew fading as the
Sun, on *******, whisks it away to wonder
Of a home,
no rest, but hours to mourn;
The oak tree and the poplar waltz,
But not together, the reach of arms beg to love,
Toward each other, toward the sky, but prayers
Follow the breeze to the sea,
and drown
Blackbird dream, the day is rising,
the mystery of dawn replaced with horns and screams louder than your questions,
What you've seen from your branch
and felt on your floor can't follow you,
A time for each breath dies in each note,
Bearing the vision of your field,
but flying away to forget without
writing down the words.

Tau of my lament, my sin--
or sins-- My head, my heart, my hand,
A bind on my waist and shadow
On my eyes, green or blue or brown,
I forget.

I forget the name of this one looking
Into the eye of Muhammed,
The small one and the strong one,
They were built with joy.
Are my desert and their desert
Filled with the same dry bones?
Here, says my mother, Eat.
I've forgotten, I say.
My sister brings me water
and saffron,
Wraps my hands in her hands,
Touches my hands to her heart.
Tau, she says, her thumb on
My head, my hand, my foot.
We know, we feel, we go.

The Naturalist poses for heaven,
And the rains fall,
Mothers give away
To new Mothers, superior
Gardens, dreams and visions
of our living one, our thirsting
Mater Dei-- behold your son!
Behold your mother!
The earth is at the same time, mother,
Tau-- the mother of all;
It is in this place of seeds and wind
That blood falls to ground,
Body fails-- tau-- all creation comes from it,
The verdant one, I forget her name,
She says, This God undertakes,
God gives.

What you're really saying is - did I matter?

In reaching back to the wanting bridge
We are a child for the day,
Counting blessings in blocks stacked,
Torrent emotions in sins forgiven,
Black heart made meringue
On the tongues of old stories,
'What flavor do you remember me?'

Check email
Check phone.
Check Twitter.
Check Facebook.
Bear the lack of numbers,
Be counted among the
Never Was.

Have the sticks of your playthings become the bars of my heart,
A withered face turning from a window of sun
To a wall of aged yellow,
the substitute thrill
of building walls a hundred ways
in exchange of one death
by gaze?
Well by well, a love story
made ragged when the wind
blows too far east,
A bending elm sheltering long
the sparrow nesting
hatefully in an April snow