In a revered Tibetan tradition,
I read aloud to my father,
the dead are borne to mountains
and the bodies offered to vultures.

I show him the photographs
of a monk raising an ax,
a corpse chopped into pieces,
a skull crushed with a large rock.

As one we contemplate the birds,
the charnel ground, the bone dust
thick as smoke flying in the wind.
Our dark meditation comforts us.

I ask if he’d like me to carry him—
like a bundle of sticks on my back—
up a mountain road to a high meadow
and feed him to the tireless vultures.

"Yes," he says, raising a crooked finger,
"and remember to wield the ax with love."

My wife, a psychiatrist, sleeps
through my reading and writing in bed,
the half-whispered lines,
manuscripts piled between us,

but in the deep part of night
when her beeper sounds
she bolts awake to return the page
of a patient afraid he'll **** himself.

She sits in her robe in the kitchen,
listening to the anguished voice
on the phone. She becomes
the vessel that contains his fear,

someone he can trust to tell
things I would tell to a poem.

Cast to the sea the ***** sought out the horizon,
Yet, no closer did that lifeline magnify.
While waves threatened to devour her very self.
Fierce, some. They pounded to **** her asunder.

The deep, bent on suffering her mind till it was pruned, soaked.
Bloating her limbs, not buoyant enough to keep her afloat.
Her tears locked, shut her eyes,
In a zip of salt and wounds.
Made them ready for the sun’s vicious fight.

Eyes could not be kept dry,
Seen paranoid shadows loomed under, over
And under and over again ~ awash, awry.
Haunting her in the shrillness of the current’s toss.

She dreamt of her toes scratching in the sand,
Of the waves giving birth to her onto the shore.
The struggle and fear of it all ~ pending the end.
She tore open her eyes to see still no view in sight.

Breathed she did, as if the waves were the hum of the oceans lungs,
Fought now no longer against the move.
Given to the law of the nature she was,
Floating and waiting.
But not going down, not going down.

First she is Spring,
Leaping forth with life,
Giggling, stumbling, smiling,
She beams with promise,
Shows an innocent beauty.

Next, she is Summer,
Warm with adolescence,
Bright with new knowledge,
She displays an allure and a willingness for love,
The kind that are almost singular to youth.

Then she is Autumn,
She has found the love she searched for all Summer long,
Her skies begin to gray, and memories of Spring fade,
The lines on her face stretch forth like so many bare branches,
The warmth and elegance from her youth still plain on her face.

Finally, she is Winter,
White and grey, shadows of Spring, Summer, and Fall shine behind fading eyes,
Her hands shake from the cold, and her steps are no longer so sure,
When she rests, she remembers a lifetime of triumphs; not one of mistakes,
And still, she beams as brightly as that little girl in Spring, as Winter slowly carries her away.

And I have loved her all year long.

It was dark
the tear was lost
so it rolled down its path
Angels scorn it
the devils adorn it
It was a tear that tore me apart

The darkest sky
of a stormy night
when stars finish their parts
I cried for you, I craved for you
and a tear rolled down my eye
It was a tear that tore me apart

You were gone
with the moon's last glow
before the crack of dawn
Dusty shadows, washed away
by my dearest one
It was a tear that tore me apart

Many a year
loomed away
into a shadowed past
The eyes longed for you
they wished for you
and a tear rolled down my eye
It was a tear that tore me apart

My eyes dry up
when the tears freeze
in this cold autumn breeze
I think of you
and you give me warmth
and a tear rolls down my eye
It is the tear that tears me apart