Is it stress,
or loss, despair and survival
we must discuss.
                                    Stress is just the symptom
of a universe intent to destroy the individual
before it births new life. It sends the dogs
after us, after the holocaust, in the tattered ruins
of our city.
                        There is this despair and expectation
of destruction, but somewhere there is still also
simple sky blue,
flowers among railroad ties,
true love between ****** partners.

Is it ***,
or love, companionship and reliableness
we must expect.
                                   ***, nothing but laying my head
at your ****, can interest me sometimes. Your legs
lead to a pleasure that seems infinite and smells
perfect.
                  So there is this tenderness, a connection
like a suction to the biological that is ephemeral
as snow on the ground,
one elk in aspen,
death and nothing less.

Let us accept this pain
and some fear
it will heighten autumn colors
crack of clean air
black crows in blue sky
lake.

Rather than fight pain, falling
asleep in front of tv,
understand the full
import of its situation
in the body. Blessed
once, cursed now
only fear prevents
full knowledge of experience.

The gray sky brings
winter, no blame.
The poet writes a few last poems
or continues to live with his pain.
In itself pain does not oppose
life, and may enhance it
or build character, create
wisdom. But too much fear
chokes the throat and burns
the eyes. It
destroys the last free
assessment of life.

       --------------------------------------

Now I am going to live in my body
as it is, almost fearlessly
running in pain, working
to abandon immortality
as a hope, conceiving
sunset after sunset
feeling what I feel.

On the streets I meet
many beautiful young women
curious to a certain extent
what makes a man older.
I can only say ten years
and the hand that reaches through
the cloud. I can say
only the knowledge of mortality
which makes us brothers and sisters
with the animals. And only
the acceptance which gives us wisdom
to couple often and lovingly.

How am I going to live every day
as my last, hoping happiness
outgrows fear by an ounce
or enough? By running, writing
and loving. By moving uphill
and downhill like a bear.
By committing my last words
to a powerful lord. How
do the clouds accept my dead
self? A rock thrown, a crow.

       --------------------------------------

When I am old
young girls will not be frightened anymore.
I will invite them
to my seat and tell
about the women I knew.
I will tell about
the clothes they wore
and how they earned a living.
I will try to remember
what was important to them
and if they had a favorite color
or knew how to divine.

Maybe I live and maybe I don't.
The smoke is white or black.
The winds are bright or dark.
The coins are heads or tails.
What have I been afraid of?
Death is most of all like sleep.
We spend so long apart
after briefly knowing ourselves.
I need you to know myself
and without you all I know
is sun.

The clouds take a little blue from the sky
beyond, how beautiful the weather makes life
seem. The sky is where the soul goes when
the mind runs out of destinations. We love
the mountains because that's where the earth
meets the sky. If you just watch the sky
an hour each day, lie back in the grass,
you'll never be ill. When it rains your face
becomes a holy bowl. Once I was a beggar, no
cares, by railroad tracks. They too disappeared
into the sky. A small town you could hold in your fist
on the prairie. A big city easy to hold in your mind
when you're in the sky. The clouds take a little blue
from the sky. The sky takes a little blue from your soul. . .

No words, oily body sweats, city summer.
Desperate to get out and never return although
stalled on Triborough Bridge I admired the skyline.

My city, my death, I did it my way.
Counting your blessings a healthy activity,
the park out my back window, a job that pays.

But I am losing strength to fight
for the world in my imagination. Acceptance of reality
makes me a fossil of society.

Basho in old age found strength to walk
deep into the mountains. He visited famous sites
up north. Po Chu-i traveled mountains in his dreams.

You can leave at any time. You can return
without being seen. A way to learn
your insignificance, freedom to have never been.

Crows, bluejays and pigeons
talk this morning. Closest we come
to wilderness here. Autos screech
and sirens scream. Only 7 a.m.
My fat belly and possible cancer
worry me. With a few months
to live, I'd search the wilderness
for some wisdom I missed. Or
plain beauty of natural randomness.
Knowing that, why do I remain
in health? I must devote my
present to my future existence.

The bluejays complain long after
everyone else is silent.
Love and friendship need the body
and society. You belong, you want
to belong, three days in wilderness
and you gladly return to
lovers' arms and plumbing.
But one day you die. And this
is the ideal independence you sought.
This death is the pristine aloneness,
the untouched wilderness and
freedom from necessity! And
it is certain. You do not save
for it. You do not worry that
you may miss your opportunity.

No cows to look at
I hear the truck traffic

Everything changes like clouds
The page this poem is on burns

Coming from the funeral with friends
Talking on the telephone

No trucks to grind their gears
I hear the minute hand moving

Birds and people inhabit the earth
A black bear inhabits the earth, too

A rock in the sun
Calligraphy brush

In a mind there is apocalypse
No one can hear it

What is appropriate to say about the changes
in your life. That at 23 I was confused
about a girl, under the sculpted pines.

Quietly, my friends and I contemplate death.
A subject, until recently, unknown
to us in such a variety of forms. Nuclear flash
to exploding blood vessel in the brain, control
eludes us. Heirs to a society adept with numbers,
we run in the park and eat whole grains,
increasing survival odds.

The city and the mountain are two hard anvils
against which our hot lives are shaped. Love
is the fire, and the need for love. To be shaped
by the lover's warm hands, like clay.
Alive, almost sure of it.