ONE

A dense forest, from some
skulking angle, is a vista—

Even this wildly colonnaded temple
has its nave—

If only in dry times
with shrunken leaves

A distant sun, the closest star
or hot words of light surge

As living blood through the
harmless hole in your heart

TWO

As leaves with tapering green fingers
scratch their sisters' backs

Or hard breath rustles them
through a tattered woodwind

Not only friction slides between
these skins — immutable green

Phrases indeed pass: howled
notes of irritated flesh

Or the tissues through which
some sick blood red beats blow

We felt the winter moving through the air
but didn't feel it sink into our bones—
as by and by it settles into stones—
and yet it did. I can't recall just where

we were when I first felt that we were cold,
but I remember how you shivered even
in our bed beneath the blankets, even
under all my weight that you could hold,

insisting it was coming from within
your bones, deep down, and radiating out
to make your hand feel chilly in my own.

And now I've got the shivers, too. My skin
is cool with winter, chatters in my mouth,
as by and by it settles in a stone.

To pyramids and pygmies,
all things mighty and puny-
I wouldn't be able to fathom
the true depth, they have
with my limited yard stick, "mind"
with a heavy heart, I bow low,
apologize and seek pardon
in the name of the one
unified cosmic consciousness
that dwells in all of us
from aliens to astronauts.

Why don't we pulsate in unison?
not your fault, but mine,
I understand, life has many secrets
dark energies fill all vacant spaces,
I too am it's slave, I must be beware,
by dismissing all those
as inconsequential as ever,
I'd create darkness single-handedly, I am aware