I decided that if I die like this in love with flowers, attentively watching the rain commence it’s cleansing slide down a window or outside with the cold piecing air
making my breathe a boundless cloud
–I would die full.

I have a heart
used to yearning.

To swelling, full
to the brim of presence.

To aching when
presence is absent.

When it is I feel
like a man looking
at the moon.

White and large
on a clear
night.

And reaching up,
up, in vain.

I never hoped
I would hold the moon.

Though longing for it
has shaped me; has
made love a feeling
of horizons, of beauty
at far distances.

I loved, and let
love fill me, and
did not hope.


And yet


when I look at my hand now
I find it full..

And light spills from my fingers
to wash my arm, my face
in wonder.

I have found
what I sought.

And beyond hope
my longing
is ended.

For the moon is beautiful,
is beautiful,
is beautiful.

And all fears and doubts
are vanished,
for her light is cool
and blessed; and yet
draws a fire that flows
through me, bringing
hope, life, strength.

I have found my desire.

But my heart
is used to
yearning.

I will begin a new passion
as true, and longer lived
than the old.

I will hold the moon to my heart,
and meet my desire with my love.

And my hand will shelter it,
inward-facing.

May it always be so,
that my hand will shelter her.

That her light not dim,
nor beauty fade while I hold her.

That from my eyes
her light will return,
ever brighter and
more beautiful.

I have outstretched
my hand, and returned it.
And the light which
I sought dwells with me.

I am blessed,
and the world
is beautiful.

I am blessed,
and my heart
is full.

May it always be so.

May it always be so.

Autumn is a Greek sea,
A summation of wet leaves,
Gathered wicks of sunset,
A hypocaust of warm water,
That lies beneath our feet,
Incense from the Sea of Crete,
Risen to the airy suggestive.

Autumn is a word in the mind, fallen leaf-like to the mouth,
How like the orange rind, our ancient past is shriveled under pillars.

yellow sky
the winter grass
deepens

all of the world
is out of tune
and our music is still beautiful

and our beauty comes not because we are perfect
harmony is all of us
trying
and failing
and becoming beautiful

knowing we are not by ourselves
a single song
but others pitching in
and making accidents
in symphony

Envy
how I hate it
It makes me want to **** a man for
dreaming, for asking me to dream.
What use is it, what use have you
in dreaming, in presuming
that I am not in my very essence
capable only of glimpsing the edges
the light-limned outline of the door
leading forward
and falling back again.