One step in the soft concrete
and the direction you turn from there
will shape decades.
You may find the very place,
step there again, walk over it;
turn again.
It is the same pavement noticeably
worn by micro erosion, cracked
by the hard ice of twenty winters.
The place is the same,
the space is changed—
shaped as it is now
by twenty years of urban development.
Some buildings provide
familiar shelter,
others drip stormwater on your head
from strange appendages.
Stand there
if you can spare a moment.
Turn again.
No pavement lasts forever;
concrete is liquid
and can take decades to dry.

I take the same and different ways
returning to these streets I thought I knew.
Scent memories come in warm layers,
comforting until they cling, and I think
too long about the shadows
stretching behind, before
the city lights became so familiar, but
clarity depends on distance, on when
in motion the lines converge
and the shapes fade to almost nothing,
only to merge and re-emerge
with each step forward, back to you.

Let the dead carry the weight of you
when the road is long,
the climb too steep

—worn treads, bare threads—

out of time,
in place.

A bereaved mother's touch to guide you,
an empty hand to hold

when you're on the brink
of a faltering jump to the sidewalk
she is right there with you
to lift you
over the deep mud, the oily puddles.

In that dark mirror
let her show you the shattered faces
of the ones taken

but still here with you,

still here
in a world seen through her eyes
for what it was

and for all it can be.

Walk with me beyond the sunset
and let's sip the sweet ferment of the day,
the pungent lung nectar of Summer's first night.
In her beautiful darkness the world contracts
and expands like June fireworks, heard unseen
behind the measureless shadow trees.
Walk with me here while time rests his tread
leaving the sky to stars and dreams.

Somewhere beyond the sea
In the Square for you and me
A Lady stands for liberty
While the tanks come rolling

Somewhere beyond the sea
She's there for you and me
Standing tall with light held high
And all to her side she's calling

It's far beyond the stars
It's near beyond the moon
I know beyond a doubt
Brave hearts will lead us there soon

We'll meet beyond the shore
We'll stand proud as before
Safe and free beyond the sea
And never again those tanks go rolling

We'll meet—I know we'll meet—beyond the shore
We'll stand proud as before
Safe and free beyond the sea
And never again those tanks go rolling

This dry Spring
the parched earth drinks quickly,
every cool droplet precious
as the tears of the bereaved.

The rain furrows the dusty creek banks
like sunken, careworn cheeks.
the timid water hurries
past sandbars and gravel spits,
around balding rocks crowned
with rotting riverweed.
and in the green places that remain
to be sought and found between
the highway noise and the factories,
there the shy ones grieve with us
for all those lost to disease and violence,
miscarriage and mischance.

We round the bend;
the yearlings start and bolt
through the tangled underbrush—
an exercise in their own fragility.
The mother does not run.
she moves warily
a few paces away
and meets our gaze: measured, assessing.
She takes us in, then bows
her graceful neck to the tender shoots
that break the hardened clay,
the gesture her benediction of peace.

Behind the sky the Weaver knits
All beautiful and ugly things
Together as with perfect wit
She severs and she stings.
Each and every little soul
Safe to her downy back she brings
While their forgotten lullabies
She strums on silver strings.

The highway changes when you travel it
At different times,
In different seasons,
Weathers, road conditions, or decades.
The places you pass and your final destination
Will change entirely from year to year
Or day to night.
The highway will tell you totally different things,
The signs change from year to year
And day to night.

The sky goes dark, the lights come on,
Some letters are lost, and new meaning found.
A roadside motel becomes simply a mote,
There is vacancy where before
There was nothing at all,
Just an abandoned fruit stand, which by twilight
Becomes a small house—
The siding might be yellow or brown—
With dark curtains and neon signs
Proffering readings, psychic insights, an open palm.

The other night, I came to the end of the highway.
I would have crashed right through the barrier
But God or my survival instinct intervened,
And my journey continued
On a different highway altogether.

A wise woman once told me
Anger is no trustworthy emotion for a poet.
Thus has my hot heart's spring gone dry:
Pain and fury sapped it,
Soft tissue stripped and bitten from without
And within, leaving only smoldering bones,
Teeth dulled and nails blunted;
Calcified soles to carry me
Through desert darkness,
Where at last brittle, broken
They fail. No more strength
In clenched fists,
Nothing
But hope in a desert of light,
To join there those equal to anger,
No longer its slave.

As stately as a Redwood and as strong
as the gray cliffs of the Sierras,
as warm as the sun on the kelp-strewn sand.
I remember her musical voice and I hear
the murmur of the waves
and the whisper of the wind
in the Eucalyptus trees.
I see the limitless ocean and sky,
remembering her beautiful blue-green eyes.

May you find your Polaris
when fickle starfields shift
behind dry eyelids
no constant but movement
too deep for volition
no feeling, only the throb
of an unquiet pendulum heart
marking the numb, blind hours
between midnight and winter dawn

We soak our travel-weary feet
Together in the deep end of a sea of clouds;
Take pause on the immortal steps
To inhale Yellow Mountain mist,
Coal dust, incense. Smokeless
Digital fireworks and sky-high butterfly facades
Sprout like corn stalks in autumn haze,
While we navigate this land of a billion characters
And more with only a phrase to go on,
Past the shops, libraries,
And reading rooms packed
With a literature only seen;
Poetic place names set
To a music only heard;
Guided by subtext, courteous,
And often as odd
As we find ourselves, on another side
Of a world only passing through.

At the brink of worlds I could
Hear hammer blows on coffin wood
Drink headline ink 'til doomsday falls
Taste newsprint paste on gray cell walls
Fissures deep in split flesh stung
With gritted teeth and muted tongue
Where endings chewed in unplacid fever
Slake only the fat of the world-eaters

I am a creature
Of movement and pain.
In movement and pain I exist
And have always existed.
To cease movement
Will be to pass from existence.
I am a creature
Of movement and pain.

Stiff necks turn your ears
To the approaching thunder
In the sanctuary walls,
A tremor in the civic flagstones,
Four million poster-board sentiments,
And twice as many young lungs.
They will be marching still,
When you can no longer
Answer those piercing eyes
Looking to your legacy,
Nor stand before the tender feet
Shaking the earth you leave them.

Animated by twitch of muscle,
Electric spark through live wire,
Humming rail and synapse,
Wheels spin at the fingertips of maybe
An ineffable humorist,
The mastermind of this beautiful prank
Pocketwatch of silver and gold
That explodes in the hand
And leaves you stranded on the platform
The second you go to check the time.

Maybe you find your center
On a couch beside a divided highway,
Where asphalt ribbons melt together
In the beautiful mess of the day's last fire,
Where light falls on upholstery
In a manufactured Southwest pattern,
Best suited to drier air but somehow
At home on a Wisconsin shoulder,
Watching the world go by
In metallic paint and autoglass reflections,
Moving too fast to catch all the names
Of almost-forgotten rivers crossed:
Rib River,
Rat River,
Jump River,
And any number of State Name Rivers.
Or maybe you find your center
On the other side of a plume of red granite dust,
Where the asphalt ends and the rivers
Are more than almost-forgotten signs
Beside a divided highway.

Some impossible goodbyes
Like a farewell embrace
For a wisp of tobacco smoke
Or a parting kiss
From the vapors dancing at the rim
Of that favorite chipped teacup
You carry with you wherever you go

I felt a tree's heart one summer
Night after the heatwave;
The wood was damp where abandoned
Roots drew the cool groundwater, still
Trying to make cells, shade, and scent
As they'd done for more years than I
Walked by without pause,
Until the tree was gone.

It is for no ill will, no caprice on the part of fire, but for love. Man wakens fire from sleep, feeds her, cares for her, and keeps her alive. And so she smiles on him with friendly light, warms him, whispers to him mysterious songs, and drives away all that would sting, bite, harass, or harm. For as man loves fire, so fire loves man and delights in his company, all the more in wild and lonely places.

In June, I saw
A beautiful white spider
On my backpack.
It was eating a mosquito.
I will write a poem
About it later.

O black toad,
Sage of the sodden floor,
Grant me your stoicism
As I go my labored way.
And may you prosper,
Consume legions, grow fat;
Yet deftly elude all
Who would do you injury.

The Sun kissed me goodbye
With a parting ray and left me
To walk the woods alone
Through green into gray.
Some say you can't see
The stars for the rain, but
Come what may, I will follow them
Until I find her light
And feel her warmth again.

Every now and then,
Someone lights up your world
Like breaking weather,
Scattering the clouds
And baptizing your soul
In a deluge of colors.

Every now and then,
Someone captures emotions
Like bluebottle flies
In a jar, only to release,
Too delighted ever
To pin them with names.

Every now and then,
Someone dares you to dance
With words or muscle memory,
And laughs with you
When flailing efforts prove
That you almost can.

Every now and then,
Someone glows like traffic lights
And points you to new roads
They've traveled on before:
Ways that part and meet again,
Every now and then.

You neatly told me
That your muse is more a student
Of mountain writing
Than of poems; the way they go in
And out, all natural and deserted.

How otherwise can one know
The heart of the matter than
To isolate the heart, at least
For a moment or several, with
What remains of earth and air?

Leave it alone without water.
Send it into the woods with nothing but
A flimsy packet of beef jerky,
No swimwear, and hope
That the sky doesn't pour itself in riot.

So be ready for anything with
The grace to let the self be
Washed, dunked in a lake
Of coffee to emerge what it could
Have been from the beginning.

Midway upon the journey of life
I found myself riding
zigzag down dark streets,
for there was no straight way
through that teeming urban grid.
Thus I travelled deeper into the night,
while rosary beads swung hypnotic
from the mirror, reflecting the revenant eyes
of one raised by an invisible hand
from salt water rocks where
as a boy, he said, he should have died.
Deftly navigating changing lights
of amber, red, and green,
he humbly inquired after my beliefs
and the state of my soul.
As to this I could not say,
so I drew it out and held it gingerly
by the rough edges, examining
as best I might in that dim backseat
its wrinkles, creases, and scars.
In the reflection he saw all these clearly,
and with gentle resonance spoke
of things impossible to know,
less difficult to believe,
and blessed me so
that on passing out the door
I found my soul again soft and warm.

In the sunbeams lake flies dance
Away the days like decades 'til
Exhausted from their revels drop
To coat the water with their dead
From where on Winter's other side
Unseen young will hatch and rise
To dance away their seven days
In the sunlight of another Spring

Gravel mounds in the mist
Are the mountain ranges of fantasy,
Spring green, eerie seen
Through commuter train windows.

Pitched roofs recede
Into infinite distance,
And junkyard parking lots are legion
In the gray suburban obscurity.

Factories and landfills loom,
Monuments and mausoleums,
The labor and the leavings
Of the little colossi.

Today I saw a happy face
With silent music behind the eyes
And a spring in her step;
Gray earth and skies
And storm forecast, no matter.

Fingers on the rails can feel
The pulse of steel and diesel engines,
The muscle and sinew of a continent.
Ten thousand horses throb the air
And bear down on a mile of freight.
It rolls by like thunder
Under a clear blue sky, stirs the soul
With memories of lonely whistles
In the night, a desert wind, mystery lights;
When little fingers at the open window
First felt the pulse of steel and diesel,
A few million miles ago.

This ground is hard and cold;
Streets are empty,
But not the houses.
There people stir and peer
At me from ***** windows.
A gray ghost, I pass quickly
On long legs and silent paws
To hunt the city's rabbits at dawn.

I found a pack of Newports on the sidewalk
Before my doctor's visit Wednesday after work
I smoked two just to see whether I remembered
The taste of ash, mint and tobacco leaf
The stuff of life and death, the bitter and the sweet
Hurrying across the busy street
I looked up to see Mother Mary there
With dark eyes, olive skin, and wind-tossed hair
She seemed tired and a little sad
But her face was kind and she had God on the line
And ash on her brow, which reminded me of the day
I repented and gave the rest of the cigarettes away

Strong currents flow different ways
From where the bridge was, after the first plunge
Soothed the sun-burnt skin and the hay-splinters
Loosed the straw stuck in ears
After I left you under the porch light
Alone on the other side of the night
Where poplars reached for the moon and stars
And the cows chewed on bits of memory from when
In the cobwebs and calf pens
They were brought to life by your gentle hands

You crossed two worlds to find me in the darkness
But I was not the one you were searching for
You prayed for miracles while
God stood by, arms crossed
Just taking in the sunset and the clouds
Like an old tree beside a grave carefully fenced
To keep it disheveled amid tended fields
Thus the cancer had its way and I could not
Fill the void left in your heart or mine

With no more tears to soften dry leather
I put our hearts on skewers and held them
Over the bridge's burning planks
Too close and they were immolated
Not carefully spun to stay golden and warm inside
So I packed my own hollow heart full of nothing
Filled the passenger seat, until
There was only room for me and the steering wheel
And no way to turn

He was asking for something,
I took out an earbud to hear what.
He was born ten years after me
But looked ten years older.
He told me I'd never been in jail,
Never been homeless.
He asked if I knew
How he knew.
I said, "Good guesses."
He told me I looked different from other people,
Said there was no fear in my eyes.
He was proud of knowing so much about me.
But there was more he did not know,
Such as what makes me different
And why there is no fear in my eyes.

Outside two squirrels foraging
Inside one hundred and one keys tapping
Three buttons clicking and one wheel spinning
Eight hours a day sitting badly
In an ergonomic desk chair
Soft fingers tap on plastic and glass
Weak muscle memory of calluses and splinters
And sunburn blisters from another life
Outside the old prairie wind howls like a phantom
Lost in urban canyons buffets the panes
Drives the torrents of freezing rain
Hard droplets tap on metal and glass
While inside our high-rise terrariums we sit
Generating transient value that flits
Up into the clouds till whenever
You tap plastic to trade your invisible worth
For a hot meal in a disposable bowl
Ponder and sip in another life you could be
Spending all day in the freezing rain
Hunting squirrels for soup

I sat outside today eating
Sushi and miso soup in the sun
Some squirrels came by
And stared at me hopefully
I put a bit of miso soup in the lid
And set it out for them
But they weren't interested
Then a gust of cold wind blew the lid over
And the soup was spilled
One of the squirrels went for the crumbs
In an old potato chip bag instead

With tenacious tread I seek the dawn
Like urban trees drink deep
Of lake water and clear skies, I plant my feet
Only to stumble through
The arid wasteland of my wound.

I walk off the pain
Though each step draws the flames higher
Each breath becomes an act of will
My own heel my pyre.

I set my eye, with rigid strides
Press toward the gold horizon line.
Maybe a fool: I am my own fuel
As forward motion consumes, I'm vaporized
And my sparks skyward fly.

Ashes
To ashes, dust
To dust.

Each searing step I take alone
Then in the coals see marks
Of other feet, upward look and meet
Eyes ember bright, fearless
Fingers tracing filaments against the night.

Fire walkers give off the light
By which we find a way
A note or rhyme, a guiding flame
As forward motion consumes, refines
And our sparks skyward fly.

Ashes
To ashes, dust
To dust
To gold.

Alone the third thing can't be known.
Alone, I am a cold, dark stone
In a universe yawning lusterless,
Spinning void of aim.

Then light shines
In eyes and skies
Of gray and blue
And I am a new daymoon.

Night leads the day
As day ushers night;
Light follows darkness
As darkness the light.

I follow, you pull;
Take my arm, check my stride.
You and I mark time and tide.

We meet.
We pass.
We kiss.
Eclipse.
Heart quivers and the heavens shift.

"Let us go then, you and I,"
Wend our way across the sky.

The unknown beckons
To me and you
Where green meets hues
Of gray and blue.
Infinite line: horizons new.

Misty islands ships drift past,
Clouds cut by spires of stone, steel and glass,
Cities bright in alley pools,
Magic light on windswept moors.

Prairie hills in gentle rain,
Northwood pines sun washed again,
Spring moss upon the forest floor,
A different green on the unopened door.

"Let us go then, you and I,"
Together take the road untried;
Wend our way across the sky:
A little sphere of green and blue
'Round which we dance,

Me and you.

No poem came to me this morning
as I walked for an hour
in the snowmelt mist
threading my boots through
the brown salt muck and flotsam
winter's junk food wrappers
the city just stared
at its own face in the ice
as uninspired as me

Hangs over head by a solitary hair
Pommel set with Lucifer's star
Crossguard of the crescent moon
The Blade a king's interminable doom

Wellspring of blood and gold
In flame and glory ever
Doest thou faithful rise
Cast off thy vapor shrouds
Radiance of ancient godhood undimmed

Magnified by singing ice
As prophesied in the late darkness thy
Hoped triumph heralded while
Bearers chained on metalled rails
Muttered protest under
Hoary breath of polar air

But lo! The brazen promise of thine
Image graven in beholder's eye
Rings hollow in the bitten ears
And the stung flesh
Feels thy boasted fire
Not at all

Above thee stands the city's goddess proud
So virile once thou smilest
Upon her white clad shoulder now
Ceres scorns thine impotence turns not
But fixes her steeled gaze
On the frozen north

A sidewalk canvas
Half done slush
An oil slick
Twice frozen ice
And boots that slip
A train just missed
The red eyes glare
Rain that floats
In sour air
Brutalized concrete
Bleeding rust
Filthy floors
And alley walls
Spent cigarettes
In every nook
Steel that shrieks
In cold protest
Blue lights
And a defiant poet
On every corner

If I had words
To close the day for you
I'd give you sunbeams
Golden of hue
I would make this light
Last for all time
And wish you a night
Bright with moon shine
If I had words
To close the day for you

On a misty city morning
still resolved to early rising
I came upon a heap of corpses

They were child sacrifices
made to satisfy the fancy
of Christian capitalist and pagan
and a jolly old fat man
who lives at the North Pole

They might have been

growing tall
in a field or on a hill
drinking sunlight
breathing love songs
in answer to caress of wind

But the silent pines
didn't seem to mind
their broken bodies one last gift
filling my chest with fragrant air
and longings
for fields and hills
on a misty city morning

Sipping the air of a city night
So heady in the cold
On the move under static lights
Little worlds about
To collide

Gravity frivolity
Draw broken hearts like earth bound stars
As the pull of every
Small storied point holds others back
From abysses beneath
Dark waters

Lone souls each and all
Compose this metropolis
Joy is to be
Discovered in insignificance
Where together
We belong

The day of the site visit
I hurried out at six fifteen to wait
For a train with a waning moon,
Bright Venus and Jupiter hovering
Above the skyline. The amber horizon
Turned to orange and pink
As scattered stars went dim.

Misread the schedule and arrived
Downtown three quarters of an hour
Before my Electric District connection.
An accidental gift to self.
I ascended, ate two breakfast sandwiches
I got for one dollar with a coupon,
Warm in my hands on a blue picnic table.

The sky grew light
Above the Lake and I wandered
Through Millennium Park. It was empty
Or nearly, which felt the same.
The sun broke the bent horizon
In chrome and ice. I took some pictures,
Then descended to find Track Five.

The day's light revealed
Hollow houses with cartoon stone applied
Like paint, unable to compete
For preeminence with two-car garages.
The newest were bigger and offered
In different colors, but all the same.
Driving conditions were excellent.

At sunset I stood on another platform
Above a busy highway. The last rays came
Through tree branches and melted
Into the pale sky as they left my face.
I had witnessed that sun's birth,
It had warmed me while I waited for my carpool,
Rested with me on a concrete planter after lunch.

I entered the city in darkness
A second time. Changed muddy boots
For clean shoes and hurried to the museum.
It was a free night, overcrowded
With families and children, so difficult
To find a quiet corner for contemplation,
Any sanctuary for my own small soul.

I descended, discovered the typewriters, then
Realized you and I were already there, just
In different colors, using different words,
Spending school vacation to view old paintings
And the Holiday Miniature Rooms.
It dawned and the future was brighter even
As I left the city in darkness.

Seventy minutes or years
The bus does not stop

We ride past invisible fields
Through birch forests
I see their ghosts
In the headlights' glow
By day it could be Wisconsin
Or Indiana or Michigan

Our people have well-hidden scars
Seeds of pain buried deep
Underneath these invisible fields
Brother betrayed brother here
And many times before that
Since the first of us

Fairy lights dance on the horizon
Assemble to make a suburb
The bus does not stop
By night it could be Wisconsin
Or Indiana or Michigan
And so it is

Seventy years or minutes
To process these thoughts

And in that time
Seeds of pain may grow
Into a harvest of love
If we choose

I am a stone.
Long ago my mother gave me birth.
From her molten womb in the cooling rain I took shape.
Wind and water gently washed me
And smoothed my hard edges.
Through riven clouds the bright sun warmed me,
And the gray mist wove me mossy coverings.
Day after day I listened to the wind in the heather
And the cry of sea birds wheeling overhead.

Men found me on the mountainside,
Stripped me of my mossy cloak
And hauled me away on a cart of wood,
To be used for the glory of God.
With sharp tools and hammer blows they fashioned me
And gave me hard edges.
They stacked me high on top of other stones,
Fitted me snug and sealed me in.
Through narrow windows the bright sun colored the floor below,
And in the darkness voices rose with scented smoke,
Singing of the glory of God.

Men warred with other men, took each other’s lives,
And threw down what they had raised up.
Scorched by angry flames, I fell
From that high place to lie broken in the ashes.
Wind and water gently washed me
And smoothed my hard edges.
Through riven clouds the bright sun warmed me,
And the gray mist wove me mossy coverings.
Day after day I listened to the wind in the ruins
And the cry of sea birds wheeling overhead.

A shepherd found me in the grass
And carried me away in his arms.
He nestled me alongside other stones
To keep wandering sheep away from deadly cliffs.
Though riven clouds the bright sun warms us,
And the gray mist weaves us mossy coverings.
Day after day we listen to the wind in the heather
And the cry of sea birds wheeling overhead.