Two fishing poles, a feather,
a leather jacket with holes
on both elbows, forty-four
dollars and change in
an envelope, some dope,
a pair of worn out cowboy boots,
a clay flute shaped like a bird
that can't whistle a tune worth a lick,
an unused bus ticket, a picture
of two kids laughing pretending
to fly; an eyelash in my eye.

Sword ferns warming
some unfurling toward the sun
deeper green the moss, grows softly underfoot
forest fog the breadth of morning, breathing
grey of pale lichen clinging

a snow melt creek splashes running
clouds break away, to light the day
the shine of mossy flowers sunning

this church, it has no walls
no doors to lock nor ticking clocks to read
only of the sacred does this wooded temple sing
and I so humbled bow beneath
resplendent evergreens

Fast her wild days ran tall as forest foxglove,
long the happy sun of wing full prayers and beating drums
grassy knees ripening green on summer's lawn
honeycombed hideouts of laughing stings and bees
running long through wild meadows
pale of butter's milky cream
a child's face soft as flower petals
so quick to bud into full bloom
blushing in her rosy days
a swan soon flies to the wild unknown
there where an hourglass looks on

Sharp shard with blood, it cuts
your armored heart of crystalline
no one knows you, nor gets in
barbwire wrapped and shut
black, the deep - you've fallen
your desultory descent ever sullen
gasp of strife that smokes
and chokes apart your life
makes a slave of you, alone
calls for your blood
and bones

How I loved your mouth
the way your words belled forth
rang in soothing song
your lips and all the rest
days of coming home
in meadows or prairie suns
by love's fiery field
how we were
consumed

We are of the ocean
salt water green, lime and seaweed
clinging and threaded, verily suspended
in the far off edges, ebbing unseen
steeped in luminous moons, impossibly colored
a darkness, plumbing ageless depths of sea
strung with opulent pearls, swallowed by fields of sand
a light discovered in the shoal shimmering lands.