While our life
Expectancy continues to grow
We continue to die younger
Each time we open our
Eyes to a new day.
While the river
Remains frozen in the mountain
The birds retain the branches
Nearer to the sun
Without so many leaves.
Who is it, the one who comes
In the night by the lake
To take away all the dreams;
To open our mouths to the stars
With such a sudden haste?

The emerging minutes
Wrapped themselves
Loosely around the
Branches of my mind
(Like banners in the wind)
And the naked trees
Poetically, whispered
In a spoken silence
Beneath the shadow
Of the mountain.
Dusk was heavier than the stars
Heavier than my sadness
Here in the ravine, waiting
For the snow.

I've always exerted
My heart carefully
Not to attract attention.
Like a waiting lion
Or the empty night.
In the forest
My heart beats against
Time. The distant shores.
I breathe in the vastness
Of a darkening forest.

The mountains in winter
Full of those darker shades
Covered in snow. The deeper
Ravines, the frozen river.
Very little movement.
Who is it that speaks
Skittishly, naked on the breeze
Of coming snow, stars?
The mountains in winter
An overwhelming moment
Of peace. Opening my eyes
Into this incredible existence
To a cold thatched sky and beyond.

Our lives are like
Those stones that
Escape out of
The hillside
And glitter in the sun.
Being heaved
From that hidden source
We arrive broken
And full of contradictions.
Exposed once again
To the forceful elements
Of love and fear.

For many years now, I have
Thought of the concept
Of a single thing
A fox in snow, a hillside
Full of stones. I was here
And then there and
Couldn’t understand why.
For many nights now
I have been as lonely as a mountain
Listening to the rain. Wondering
In my sleepless rifts
Where did the days go?
How did the stars sway?

The roots
          That twist
Around the stone
                 Will one day
        Loosen
The stone
           That twists
Out of the ground
                 One day will crumble
Into little more
           Than dust
And blow away
                  In the wind
Far across the ocean.
The earth
Too one day
           Will dissipate
Into nothing
                   More than gas
That will be carried
                       Across the cosmos
                           To start new beginnings
                                 And spread old roots

The stones
Heave outward
Broken
On the hill.
The roots
Twist tighter
Deeper
In the ground.
The branches
Arch upward
Higher
To a trembling sun.

There are faces in the stone
The cemented sand that face
The stumbling mountains
To the east, like prisoners
In prayer. There are
Stories here held loosely
In the empty rivers;
Afternoons full of
Electricity and rain
Winter nights cold and quiet
Days of endless aching wind
And mornings, fresh and new.
If you listen closely, you can hear
Them talking about such things as
Erosion, defiance
Moons and stars.

The rushing of water
Through narrow veins
Of stone, like marrow
To be disposed of
To get rid of
Or the dull ache
Of wind finely etching
The cemented sand lose
Like a surgeon;
These years the same, the same
Sometimes the raging flood
Of debris, in all its muddy glory
Sometimes, the soft tug
Of stars pulling inward
Ever so gently, like
A long forgotten memory

The sea knows a secret
I know the taste of
Time on its wave
Like those embraces
Beneath the mountains.
In the time of change
Even the heron
Follows the watery paths
To home. Oh those rotten
Old hills oh those sandy
Flower like feelings. My streams
Run down my cheeks
My streams run deep
And old.

There's a mountain in my mind
I've never been able to see
Beyond the farthest horizon
And I'm sailing away
Beyond the further shore
To where the ancient stars
Dance like fireflies in sky.
There's a story in the shells
Of those that have sunk to the
Bottom of the sea of those
I have loved shaped by
The waves of time.
There is a place in the pines
There is a space in my mind
Where even the wind won't blow
Where even sun won't shine.

My dog dragged me through
The door into the night
Out into the cold wind.
My thoughts dragged me
Beyond the desert horizon;
The coals of dusk just ashes
The center of despair.
November's half gone
And its empty promises too
Gone like the wind in the night
Gone like the wolves in the woods

It was all a blur
Of birds, a stirring of
Leafs and then
It was over
Like after a storm
Or between tides
A thousand seasons
A thousand embraces
Of one last goodbye;
Suddenly the silence
Of understanding
The calm dread

How far do we tend to travel beyond death?
Many people say only a few thousand feet.
Can you see me there stuttering?
And what memories do we take with us
Downstream  but only a few time heavy stones?
Those is which we chose to reminiscence.
Love the roundness of gravity
And hope the shape of change.
I can only remember that which
Only takes me as far as
The distant shore.

The mountain holds a lake
Like a tree remembers it leaves;
The way snow embraces dusk
And dread hangs onto hope.

The nation has no time to sigh,
Even though it should;
All the arching bones decay
As one in unison.

Me, well, dusk has a deeper touch
Than just the outward earth;
Bounded to the infinite
I'd say the weather is but fair.

Down in the canyon
Where the sun falls
Onto a stone, the light
Of autumn.
Down in
The shadow of the
Stone’s deeper signs
Small birds sing.
On the wind
I know the time
When everything dies
I know the time
When everything lives
On the wind.
The trees become themselves.
Quiet as deeper into
The night you go
Never leaving your feet
You float.

Beyond the mountain
Stars sleep
Free of prejudice.
In the pink light
Of morning the
Birds sing.

Where are all my thoughts behind the trees
Into the deepest part of the night, beyond
The edge of beginning  to love
Into the swamp of life, the great muck pool.
Behind the trees into the deeper night
Where the stars wander freely
(that’s where I am going). Beyond
The hills dressed in the gown of the moon
Beyond the craggy ridges of the giant
Who feel asleep crying. Beyond the street
The bank of trees are breathing in the musty light
Of the lamp, a group of birds huddled together
Feather’s ruffled in the wind.

I think of a heart
Scripted into the soft sand
Of a hollow day, in the evening
Of the year. Broken by
A thousand footsteps
(I’ve known many hearts like this)
When the aspen were both
Green and yellow. I think of
The juniper, almost vertical,
Clawed to the steep bank
As if they might walk up
And over, but knowing
Their true fate, as if to never
Be below (I’ve known many
People like this). I think of
A time when the bones of
Stars have faded and all
Of space is empty, in the evening
Of the end. When there is
No light left to guide and the only
Sound is that of the dead
Tiptoeing through the arroyo.

All the earth
Became the water
A question I
Could not answer.
Soft yet rigid
Slightly spinning
Love the same of
Sand.

Autumn
The sun rose like an old wave over
All the mountains that couldn’t contain
The light from which they came
A long time ago, yet the wary day was
Young and inexperienced in the season of
To shed a leaf, to feel first snow (ode to
the wiggling winds of change).
Love was both young and old and
In the hazy sky the light took on
More the color of an eternal being
Sitting down to read a book beside
A half open window, a fuming
Cup of coffee (oh to be both alive
and empty) more the color of
greeting than anything, a shy
"hello?"

All these window lights are people
Eating, breathing sleeping
Like the sunrise, like the moonset
Devouring the space given to them
Like a river, like a mountain
(Sleeping, waking, moving).

All these stars are dying
Emptying out their existence to the
Emptiness of the unknown
Devouring the space in which they seek
Like a river, like a mountain
(Sleeping, waking, moving).

Who is it that wanders in their mind’s
But the ones who ask the harder questions?
Who is it that goes down into the black swamp
And confronts the age-old cypress?
It is the one’s filled with light and dying
Like a river, like a mountain
(Sleeping, waking, moving).

The only way in is through
In the swamp, full of thick
Muck. The only way out is
Above, the punctured sky
Of stars. My bones become
It’s thoughts, my thoughts
Begin to stir. Muffled wind
Through the naked cypress
Then the moon
Then no more

Physical burning wing
In motion the big bird
Flies into the woods
Like a flame extinguished;
The year is in rust and waning
The day in dusk and purple
And it's best we head home now
Back along the cow path
Over the glacier's disposed memories
(Still looking backward
My mind goes deeper into
The cold, dark forest)
To the steady fire waiting for us.

I went out to explore the night with my mind
Very delicately unweaving the onerous stitches of fear
To become as free as the wind, or say as free
As a bird in the wind. The thought of winter hung over
The town like an approaching glacier being
Very eminent, but not precisely clear, as if to leave us
In a state of perpetual dread (is pure freedom free
Of fear?) and grinding out the light. I wanted it to be
Then that I knew she loved me, walking beneath
The trees like giant balloons in the lampshade light
Swaying overhead, sipping in the night like
A fine cocktail before a fire, strolling through the
Streets and ally ways of the city brain. And perhaps it was then
When the lady whose car broke down outside of town
Asked for a place to stay was crying, that something
In the sky burst, like an explosion, seen but not felt.
The night was young, dependent on your age
And our love was young then too, much like
The first leaves of spring, or the first frost of winter.
Perhaps it was the intensity of the moment
The screaming cars, the vehement animosity
Of an open window, that lead me deeper into the
Mountains, walking beside a stream swollen
With the reflection of the loveliest of
Star blooms, the most delicate of flowers. It was then
And it wasn’t then. Just out of grasp, the mind reaching
Forward further.

I've seen so many pass beside
My sharper edges
I've felt the eternal night
Beneath my softer bones
Flow like water
(Kissed the eternal light)
The fire from which I was born.
I've watched them come and go
As I broke apart, as the stars
Above and below exploded
Breathed hard, harder
Going forward and backwards
Like a dream, it was a dream.
I was a stone beneath a tree
A bird on the limb
A cloud, disappearing into the horizon
A wave or two across the shore
A fish, a feeling quicker than a flash
Of lightening, my flesh transparent
My veins deep as time
(And you there for a moment)
Stirring like the seed
That began everything
There along the path
Which you happened upon
On the way to the lake
Beneath the mountain
Beside the pine (it was in the
Time of summer, smoke)
I took a week, a break, to discover myself down the long road
Toward the southern heat;
It hasn't began yet though
Tomorrow it will.

There are so many trees
On this mountain it's hard
To know which one is you;
But I can hear the snow fall
Through the heavy thought of spring
And know that you are out there somewhere
Standing defiantly.

The dusk is full of iron sleep

I walk through the naked aspen

The cobwebs of all this motion

In a cold blood sky mind.

To know that the sun always shines
And that the darkness always devours
Well then, that's true peace.

I went for a walk
Down a path
The day after all
The wind blew all
The leaves out
Off the trees
Onto the empty stream
Into the empty forest
And filled those cracks
With some pretty
Yellow for awhile
Before the snow
Came after dusk
And killed all those
Stars with dreams –
Everything was grey
And cold and I went
for a walk to get
further away

Coast
I
Let me take your mind ashore.
I will catch you with a net
Of stars. As if the light
Has no other choice, but
To gather. The hard-shelled pieces
Of your memory. I will lay you
Out upon the sand. Then the
Sun will rise.

II
The old oak with it’s
Many dark places
Felt like a home
When it rained.

The slow moving mouths
Of lichen swept like a great army
Across the broken bones of the mountain
And isn't that the way love came too
So quickly and showed its sweeter
Tounge to the iron of our desires?
The better question being though;
Were we born, meant to dig holes
Or fill them in? Even the stars,
In all their vastness, ask
that one.

the poem should melt the mind the
words should be so, lascivious as if to
jump from the lips of stone
and kiss death itself. I know
the sun, have seen it's curse.
I know the moon have cried.
I know nothing of mountains but
the climb. I look at the sky as if
it was the sky. I dream too little
dread too much.

There's a mountain in your mind
And it's covered in pine
On a lake in the night
That's swimming in light
Of a moon, that's too lost to find.

There's a valley below
Where the rivers all flow
And a tree, full of white flowers;
That's blooming sweet empty hours
Into a careless, intrusive spring.

And never mind the words I spoke
As the stars turned to smoke
Or the kiss, that I stole from your face;
A simple embrace, of a time and a place
Together, that stitched in the pain.

We have gotten here because
We cannot remember; if we
Remembered we would not be here
The folded field gold, the brown woods darkening. So far from where we began those softer memories, like a deeper mist moving through the trees. The open window the open mind, free of fear and full of love, it was there in all places hiding in plain sight, shy and nervous. I dreamed last before death of the sun dieing in the winter wood
Like a candle before the breathe
Of sleep blowing gently
Blurred, orange and grey.

I rose as a green fern on a tree
After the passing of the night storm and maximized the time of being present by being quiet
I was as quiet as death, so death
Couldn't hear me. And I drank
The air with a passion so
Crude as if to harness
The lungs to compromise. I rose
Above the rest, for the better part
Of the morning. Deep in the swamp
Hanging like a wrist waving goodbye
In the golden gleaming swamp
Waving goodbye so relentlessly;
Not afraid of when's next, or what.

End. We learn how to remember, through tragedy
And rise from pain. A tree uprooted
The soul shaken - a life gone.
The birds came and the birds went.
The stars beyond our view ramble on.
Tears are wet against the cheek
This winter day is dieing, this
Winter day is done.  Remember
To love without regret, it's never too late to begin.

This rock bombastic
Fallow fears real
Clinging like
To moss shadows
Even sun
In november caustic
Divide the day
Climb and descend
Love for
A time muscles
Pinched mind
Callowed flying
With soft strokes

Isn't it ectastic
To live in a world of color
Or to think of you in the shower
Drying yourself off me, baby
Think about the distant stars
The lonely miles between
And all the lustful dreams
Of meeting you by the ocean
At low tide on a grey day
Nothing bombastic but
You said you loved me
And we walked out into
The waves and picked broken
Shells with our toes, like apples.
And isn't it ectastic
To live in a time of love
To love in a time of love

The hills
Ever so high
Grow higher
As I lower
Beside the river
Beside the stream
And dream or see
A single leaf
Still caught beneath
A rock, stuttering
As if alive
On high bough
Not boundless though
Close for awhile
Floating back and forth
Until carried away
And gone on
Forever there
And then
The course of
Course but more
The desert
Dead and dieing
The stars some
Black and bending
Some gone some
Yet born what is it
That takes and gives
So calculatedly carelessly
So surely spinning
Almost reckless like
Then tbe mother said
Almost motherless like
Could be brain or stem
Does not matter.

I've aged more than a mountain
Can't you see my canyons?
Running off into the sun
Into the low ****** hills
The etched relief of a million years
Frozen, like autumn sleep
Restless with tension
Of a long winter. Can't you see
My desires, the thousand foot
Drop from sky to stone
Bellied out like a sword
Laid forth to the day,
Can't you see my pride?
This the empty scene
Only a thought, one of a million.

Of all the possible infinities
I melt beneath your stabilities
The stars and more
Like leaves in fall like
Shorter days and sleep
I know the cough of love
Sick and resilient
Your weaker sides
Aspen, juniper cedar.

And I feel like I can finally sleep again
And I thank you for that.

Hide all the cords;
Autumn has gone
And winter creeps in
Not yet
I say though
Go deep
Breathe
Fall
Back
In to place

There she was
Beneath the ash tree
Wearing many seasons
One
Long sweep of her dress
Fire gold
In the dawn light
With the sun hidden
Behind the mountain
Burning. The leaves
Caught in the frozen air
Full of frost
And yearning. Her hair
Was red her eyes gray
And morning was just beginning
My eyes sliding down my nose
Caught off guard

Wet and damp
Are the leaves
Beneath the autumn moon
Hanging on
So carelessly
Free of fear
Full of frost.

Moon like dragon eye
A dull yellowish red
Moon half full above
The distant mountain
Moving ever so slightly
Pulling the soft roots of
My mind, those in between
Thoughts, down. Moon of
Midnight's horizon
In the middle of autumn
Moon that breathes not
Fire but frost, tugging
Off the leaves one by one
Keeping in tow
With the memory of
When everything was one.
Moon of want and moon
Of waiting, moon of fear
And moon of relief.
Reflection and folly
Restless yet calm.

In my head between the mountains
And the plains, those flowers
Of autumn how they hang on
Loosely like a tired mind
Grip onto the gravity of dieing
Yellow, purple and orange
Fall off the stem like a dream
Full of nervous repetition
Sun and moon and stars
Off onto the horizin slowly
To the east or west I don't know
Marching onward with heads hung low, so low the clouds become mist
Among the rivers of dawn
What have we forgotten to remember
Is love's ultimate struggle death. The sweet smell of frost the cold wind
Of change blowing against the mind
Like the shore at high tide. We have time we have no time. The low clouds
Are clear winter is upon us
Grinning quietly, anxiously.

There's a small stream that runs through a valley of white tent rocks
And i'm tuff enough to know that
It doesn't matter though I would
Say that the angle of the soft stone
Agrees to the gravity so casually as if
Or without any doubt the dead tree
Tbat hangs on so angrily will guide
Fate down the right path of finesse
You see you see

I could read it all from the earliest of times
To the most modern i could listen to it all
The jazz and all the drums and the soft whispers
Of love, and I could see all the mountains and
All the empty spaces, to know the difference between the
Mathematical infinities and reality or could i? The
Mississippi in winter, the desert in summer full
Of nothing but non emptiness to think or know
The physical is finite
And I can sleep good tonight. I feel like propane
I feel like nothing and could be
Just a comma before the unknown
Following the amazing and breath taking
Without breath, spineless and speechless
The reaction takes place and does all
Not at all and even then it's up to opinion
If it all matters or even if matter exists
It could be just an illusion for all you know
Now

Steering wind
Of sleep and dreams
Guide this restless mind to morn
Not to sail among the waves
But crash along the rocky shore;
Take the restless young and weak
Take the lonely, cold and meak
But leave me here among the dread
Of nothingness and emptiness
To wake the dawnless, heavy stars
To guide my soul between the tides
Of life and death the cruelest course.
And lift the anchor of my fear
From the sandy bottoms of despair
To free the pain that is not there
For only a moment longer.