In the beginning
crows were
as white as snow.
No.
Whiter than that.
Liquid silver.

But in these times
we see Crow as black,
though you will observe
Crow is silver in the sun
(which proves my point).

And there he is
at the very top of
that hemlock tree.

Surveys his rude world
and sees below
one whose ancestors
were here even before
tricks and tricksters.

Even before crows.

Coyote
Old Man
sly one
always ready with a joke
or a riddle

They say he spun the Milky Way
with his deceit
told the Earth's first lie

And as for riddles:
answer at your peril
or carry him
like a whispering sack
upon your back
until the end.

The cello
mother of music
sings peacefully
from the eye of the storm

A peace purchased
at the price of certitude

Piano provides counterpoint
restrained
elegant
its curtains of sound
dream their own dreams

and a longing violin
makes love to
the air itself

We march deliberately
to this tempo
stepping in time
to the sweet
and terrifying strains
of our own mortality

The composer
died
at thirty one years.
Why - how
have I lived so long?

Perhaps
to hear this music as if for
the first time
and so share it
with the sky.

Whispered theme
of my youth and middle age.
Now
pacing my reluctant
and uncertain steps
into old age.

But who needs old age?
I sure as hell
don't.

Always the golden child
the fearless one.
Destined to live forever.
That was me.

And music -
this concierto.
Music saved my life
every day.

There's nothing you can say
about music.
It eludes the weak grasp
of language.

But I lie.
Let me try.

It is
the language of emotion
the time keeper.

Bounded and constrained
by the beat
plodding, perhaps,
yet truly free of all that
and, at the end,
filled with the last breath
of eternity.

Julys have come and gone
in the hills of Shillong
and from the browned ORWO
the skinny boy with an oversized cap
smiles as if there's no tomorrow
but this moment
wrapped in fog and drizzle
holds everything within
the now filling life to the brim
making growth a needless shape
absurdly redundant
and never more real
than the eyes
peering from that shot of time
ecstatic in happiness
rejecting a future
too intangible
to be valuable.

The parched earth echoed the wails for the dead
as flames devoured the crowd of corpses
mouth agape with unquenched thirst.

The sky had mercilessly looked away
having spit fire on them down below
sparing not one waterhole on its way
and the mother if only she could
use her tears for the baby to drink
but her eyes had turned dry as the earth.

Yet dark as the depth of love
the King's pond mirrored the princess' face
and would still beam the moon in her eyes
strangely hiding from the wrath of the drought.

One night sleeping on her ivory bed
her silken skin cooled with rosewater
the princess heard a voice:

When the fury of God
blinds him to the pains of men
an angel rises to break his heart
stakes her life to rend heaven apart
so his tears on earth fall as rain.

The windless night was deadly quiet
watched by moon in awe wide eyed
the trees sparkled in firefly's light
when the princess stood by the pond's side.

For awhile her eyes roamed around
resting on the marble's gleam
the sleeping grass her sweet playground
a home smelling all earthly dream.

She felt like swimming through the air
love glowing warm in her peaceful eyes
till she reached the end of stairs
that bore her frame with deep sighs.

The heaven broke down with thunderous rain
the seeds sprouted filled field with green
upon that land wasn't a drought again
never before had such harvest been seen.

In the depth of night if you hear a cry
from the clouds pearly by dawn's embrace
know God's tears will fall from the sky
as dewdrops mourning the rain princess.

The heart wanders at night
searching, searching, searching,
for what remains
or for what has been romanticized,
but was never really there to begin with.

Combing through the debris of failure
with such regularity
that it resonates like an owls talons on cement-
- down a dark hallway.

Yet sometimes in the starlight
the heart finds something that makes everything
brand new once more.

I couldn't decide if the light attached to her
or if she swallowed it whole,
or was engulfed by it,
but there it was, in her hair -
diaphanous strands living in the ether
a little closer to the Gods than I was.

She burned extravagantly in those soft hues,
pining for the garish light of day.

The light plays tricks on you sometimes,
and the heart finds its way out of the woods
remembering sailors tales and old
Aristophanes.

The weather only makes it worse.
Cicadas sounding off at dusk.
The flowers blooming in reverse.

Your hand in mine.
Pour yourself another drink:
bourbon, *******.
Her hand in mine.

Our backyard has gone black,
the summer’s vestigial fireflies
devoured by limbs and leaves.

Lie on your back
and listen to me,
decode the blades
of grass that tickle
your ears and neck.

Love or silence.
Which is worse?

We pull at words
like dark threads,
composing curtains
for the windows
of a waiting hearse.

It is the June of no summer
misty margins shift
gray to white-blind
the view is winter
the aftertaste bitter
in a perfumed sea
this shrine
both lovely
and disconnected
serenely denies
the fog’s lies

all is quiet
the Western front
sullenly submits
to relentless
willful weather
I listen only
to the birds
conjure storms
of wisdom
await the lightening
of oppressive skies