flowers for my mother, it’s nice to hear the voice again…

lift heavy mossy beds, our golden depth…

it’s today, it’s bright, its continuous summer,

thread tugged from hot wax.  

quilting leaves, gentle and warm home breath.



sounds of water rushes words on skin, evaporate in lungs.

windows sit in windows until they are opened,

until they are opened and swiveled and creased on the edges.  

moss on fingertips.



a rabbit entered my dream like the smell of rain –

thunderous rushing sound -

anthropocene buried in a new bed.  Pause.



painting water on backs of hands,

sun dried thoughts return to lungs and yield ferns in the yard.

the first tomato harvest of the season.

they stretch the shade, slow light down.  

last garden rows on a crescent moon.



dans un reve, tu m’aimes.

dans un reve, le ciel et rose

dans un reve, tu m’aimes

et je ne saigne jamais



hieroglyphics sing inside limbs, absent and changing, dividing, growing

why do they make the strange art?  When will time stop?

being lived and lived again, being told about stories

find emerald home reclaimed



within the final days, she said

the stars are unseen

an eye closing on sunlight water

in naked tenderness, humble and gardening open air

visible but cannot be touched,

plant into the earth.  resume.

profound and rich memories carved out in pen and pencil

moss grows newly made bed.

We have been silent for the whole time I’ve been awake
Since the stars slowly faded
And we drove to the park
Under a white construction paper moon
Harmonies of watercolor hills,
Turning pages of blanket clouds
Panorama lover skies.

While her spirit still lingers in the forest,
Her and I will reunite
Under a ladder,
A constellation,
A renewed childhood
Another two years from now.

Magnolia and dogwood flowers
Say our names over and over
As they delicately pause time  
Their petals run and play
Catch in the field.

Golden light leaks through lace
And touches his sleeping eyes
Dreaming of early morning
Bird singing like a newborn.


The leaves of the painting slow their ecologic song,
Rendering the negative cool blue a cohesive orange yellow sky.
The hills unhinge themselves from the borders of the frame,
As the rabbits return to their burrows,
Brushes washed; the homage of colors slip down the drain.


All that remains is the sketch of her ghost, a hazy white anatomy of corners, planes, indications of form:
A spine, her hands, quietly strong features.


To ghosts, what is a forest?  A canvas?  A feeling other than the wind?
A memory or reality?


I regard the painting, the forest, the woman.
She becomes younger as I do.

Small video collages of opening eyes
Neurons firing and  
Right times in right places.
Homes painted after hospital beds.

What else?

Every minute of the dream was the brightest orange sunrise
We were camping in the middle of the field
I looked at you inverted,
Accepting what we already knew.



My heart is split in different places.

Some days in crowded streets,
Loud restaurants,
Drunk wedding receptions,
Laying on the grass,

   I look at my hands.
   They move in light and shadow
   Trompe l’oeil religion.
    
If I see them,
Believe in them,
Or trust them?

The canvas,  
The beach,  
The borderline,
The liminal space where my body is  

[mine]

A pause in rain
A book as company
The beach full of families

Cairns on an empty beach
To remind the waves
The flat grisaille rocks,
Mosaic crushed shells
Of the steps I took to the lake.

From the beach full of families,
Through a driftwood jungle,
To the empty apartment fold out bed.
Blinds that cut the red setting sun  
Into striations of hunger,
Waning trees on the third floor  
An echoing chamber
Open apartment balcony.

Rain on the night highway
Like constellations  
Guiding me at sea
Agitated sleep in a field of asphalt  
Fluorescent ribs on the grey car interior

Crossing state borders,
Into purple 6am skies
The sunlight starts the engine,  
Warming me from sleeping town cafes

The state park is empty this early
As light tilts from under the bridge
Empty roads and seagulls  
I start walking to keep the image untouched
10 miles later, I’ve seen redemption
In turquoise water
And concrete caverns  

I spread a blanket on the grass under a willow tree.
This is a scene I will paint---






I open my book, regarding the glass surface of the water.
Century-old footsteps listen to the shoreline,
The ancient murmurs connecting  
freedom from servitude  

I feel the cool water surround their feet
As they leave all they’ve ever known
Into a new country,
Sending a love letter to their family.

As I look up from my book,
Where they once stood,
Strangers smoke under the trees.

I sit next to small crescent shadows
Delightful celestial fragments
Soak the ground under the tree

There are people in the lake:
Swimming into the obscured lagoon
Totality opens as crickets start to sing
  Awakening a brief transition into twilight
The lake is still as gazes draw upward,
Separating ourselves from the earth
Eclipse watchers float in the serene.

    



It was the day when shattered plate shadows spread like the root system of a tree
Across the country and onto my wooden front porch


I was 18
Our shadows sewn together on the earth.