Moth, dancing moth,
dance to the light. Dance to the death.
Break those wings to free the flight,
the sea is far and here is no hearth, not here.

Fly, moth, fly
away from the lilted breeze so to breathe easy.
Your heart is in shock; Moth, go back to
from where you come.

Moth, falling moth,
no crevice in sight, dear moth—where has your illusion
gone? Moth don’t waste time, hurry yourself and
cease the end, in through the spaces and far from time.

Wingless moth, pained.
The light shines only on you. What disturbance (perturbing the soul)
held moth back?

The Sea may be salty
but she keeps men afloat
in their rocking boats
like an undulating symphony,
so when they meet
waves of spite and grief,
a tempest from which
they cannot retreat,
their anchor becomes Neptune
for they know this storm too
will pass soon
and the clouds will unform
in the light of the moon
to greet them with her
radiant beam
as they arrive on the shore of
the island of dreams.

Under a temple of sequoia,
I do not fear your ravenous wild
which lives in everything—
flowering desire.

What drives my folly
drips longingly with mad nectar,
finds your mystery alive in my eyes,
mystery coloured in vibrant azalea.

There is no forest, just
deciduous portals to other worlds.

Beneath an outgrowing meadow
of detritus, decay has a lurid scent
of pine that lingers; And your roots

guide my descent into the darkest deep,
a thousand years into the Holocene.

Show me
how to carry this endless dream.
Make me remember where
I am and will always be:

in raindrops streaming
to the understory,

in hollowed trees pulsing rivers
of sun in between,

in conifer transpiring seeds
from branch to leaf,

in earthworms relishing
the sweetness of skin,

in the enduring vision of you
that exists in the marrows
of me.

Maybe in time
touched by waterfalls of memory,
I will return to your world again—
cloaked in dirt and evergreen.