geese outside
call the hour
a breath

through a seam in the blinds
the sun
still

glasses case
when will it
come back to me

in the daylight her face just sleeping

one small ear poking out
her covers rise
and fall

her braided hair
in the lamplight
and daylight

dim shower
this blue screen
washes over me

birdsong
and roses
this imaginary garden

after all
disappointment and a cold day
a bowl of soup

bluebird courting
on each branch he bobs
up and
down

well-loved cardigan
I glance at everything
but the calendar

dawn light -
the weight of the air
settles in

evening after snow
the trees limbs
are limned in light

savoring earl grey
my pen rests
between Masters

after a mornings snowmelt
the next morning
dawns

Beneath the covers at night,
when I am alone. Past scrolling,
and all the other things that present
themselves for distraction. I find
sometimes that I am lonely, and long
for a companionship that is elusive,
even now. A likeness that calls to like.

I am aware of time, these days.
I hope that, in time, we will
find ourselves together, more
and more often.

I see you
bursting like dolphins
from a grassy sea.

Crownless,
it is for the light on your leaves
I would honor you.
Silver rippling, with the breeze and the thunder.

And you among them
still, with gold on your bent
stalk. My heart goes out to you.
Linger a little longer, fairest
one. When spring comes again
I will look for you.

quiet morning
my eyes travel up the pines
to the sky

or

quiet morning
my eyes stay awhile
at the tops of the pines

pale gate
in darkness
the hanging lamp

or

pale gate
in darkness
the unlit lamp

dim hallway
alone the hanging lamp
floats

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, 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.

yellow sky
the winter grass
deepens

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.

The bar of soap
smooth and curved as old driftwood
it is familiar to me.
Precious to me.
All of its shape and all of its use
is my own.
And with each use
it lessens and grows
in my heart.
When it is gone
I will open a drawer
and a new bar will sit
where it sits
and eventually I will forget
I ever loved it
and the whole thing will begin again.

Every time I begin to clean with a magic eraser I feel sad, because of the pure white and clean lines soon to be smudged and torn apart. I console myself with it's function, the beauty of it's usefulness; but still.

on my fingertips
the small noises
of a still night

how rare
afternoon turning to evening
on my skin

for awhile
the rain-washed limb
glows

There is a quality to desolation
that I have never seen.

I have been in a desert, touched
the aridity of it’s soil, and its
air like hot feathers
on my breath;
I have seen the sea far out
with only a blue smudge on
the horizon
to mark our return.
But I have never felt that terror,
that awe and loneliness
that has been spoken of,
and said by the poets
and deliverers,
to bring ones face
to God.

Do not misunderstand me.
I have felt these things;
at the end of a trail
leading nowhere,
on a *****
with loose stones
for footholds.
I have been in places of terror
and beauty,
and been overthrown.
But not wholly.

Perhaps
I have not been still
enough, have not lingered
in those part-wild places
that have seen the summit
of my fear, my longing.
Perhaps even they, even
they, have what I seek.

Perhaps
I have not been still
enough.

fungal bloom
hidden beneath is
its source

Clouds streak the
setting sun’s radiance,
like waves, like feathers
bowing leftward. A soft
rain falls, a breeze blows
gently from the west.
And from me the sound
of pipes, of words and
exultation, lamentation.
It is in me that the sunset
is exulted. It is in me that
the border of the blue and
purple is seen, the amber
of the center. Around me
the gloaming is falling.
I see, and am whole. I live,
and am not fractured.
This is evening.
This is evening.

vanishing tail
after three the rock
goes with it

scuttling tail
the rock falls
into place

white petals
now the clouds have
competition

blink
white petals are drifting
between clouds

At times, in my
yet brief,
and ordinary life,
I have felt
wholly,
that all that there is
to anything
is inertia;
a reaction
that begun, ends: and
all I have felt
of beauty
is but the
latest iteration
of atoms.

It is like this,
sometimes,
that all the world seems empty,
or worse
that in everything around there is light,
but in me
only darkness,
corruption,
deficiency.

I have tried to be beautiful.

I have tried to hold
about me,
in me,
the mantle of righteousness;
of tolerance,
empathy,
and all that
seems
the trappings of the wise.
I have held to
old words,
verity,
and been content.
Not long.

For always there
has been some snag,
some frayed end,
that in the end
has been the cause
of my fall.
My very own fall
from grace,
in the endlessly
renewing
microcosm
of myself.

And in falling,
I fall always
into myself;
and there all the walls
are mirrors.

If you tell me
that there is still beauty in the world,
I will say yes,
I see it too,
and when I do I see it everywhere
and all the world is beautiful;
it's only
that I can't all the time,
that's all.

If you feel
that I am unhealthy,
if you worry; don't.
For even when it seems
that I will be crushed by darkness,
it is a truth,
that I love
the darkness;
seek it,
yearn for it.
Not always,
but sometimes,
I love it:
For it allows for
circular reflection,
for positive feedback loops,
for the intensification
of those id emotions,
without which, I feel
I could not live.
So thank you,
but don’t worry:
I will take care
of myself.

coming up
clouds full
of dawn

one branch
leads to another
another

lone sparrow
vines come to
a stop

on a twig
a lone sparrow
at last

when will
I love them
birdsong

from above
backlit waves
of plastic

ahead
two red cedars
before pines

grout lines
a row stayed
of fishermen

lemons
in the bowl one
is chipped

colored in
a trees bend
and a tune

tulip
in its root is
every root

amorphous
the vitality that exists
under blossoms

leaf and tale
in brief
heart-shaped

plain shapes
hose, cube, cone
colored homely

Listen, now my friends, for I
shall let, the thought that like
an illness threads, laced through
all the causeways of my veins,
that in the moment, threatening
decay, boils, and begs relief;
that all men, and women living,
made in the plan of this wide
and tangled tapestry, seek and
humor themselves to be, each
woven separate, unique in form
and station, and about them hung
the universe, dependent for its
character on their sight, which
itself by their hearts temperament is due.
Life, the lives of others, serve the
merest backdrop, the stage that
is the foundation of our act, and
our struggles, illumined by
measure of their intimacy, seem
in their importance to swallow the
world, and cast all that does not
pertain in a veil of contempt, disinterest.
Yet the world, as in untrammeled
thought we realize, does not sway
according to ourselves, move
whether sweet or bitter, along the
course of our presumption. But in its
step it moves to the tune of its creation;
wholly nothing, never fair nor foul alone;
a pool, in which like ripples man's every
thought and action begins, grows, dies,
and is reborn. Seen now, free of leaning
and imprint, the brush's work broad,
shallow, a truth is opened, that wiser now
perforce we clutch to our *******; that of
the living, who suffer, there are those
who suffer more, or less than ourselves,
and to the former in the halls of memory we
can do naught but weep, so shut our eyes
and turn, pretending the point less sharp,
the dose less bitter, that our minds may fall
again to the pattern, and our eyes again look
outward. Walled so, is it a wonder that these lives,
these men and women, shaped as they are through
pain are found forgot, abandoned in the memory
of their minds, their hearts? But memory is the
root of empathy, sympathy; so remember, and in
whoso you meet light their memory also; for it
is only when record fails that man's erasure is
complete; nor will ever his life lose its meaning
while there is one alive to remember.