so keen were his senses he could
discern differences in grains of sand,
hear gulls' calls long before others, and
recall the number of footprints
he left on his stretch of beach

yet he spoke not a word
since she passed, stolen from him
by a fever he felt from across the room,
while others had to lay hands
on her to know

the doctor would come
and go, whispering words to his father,
not realizing the boy could hear: "typhoid"
lay in his lexicon along with "suffering"
and "death"

then the priest and prayer
too late for the woman--there
for the father, son, and her ghost;
beguiling words like "comfort"
and "eternal life"

the boy did not reveal
being mute was of his volition
allowing less sentient beasts to believe
his silence was a manner to grieve
"ruse" he also knew

months did pass, and the
others implored him to speak;
he would return again and again
to his shore, where he heard
wings and winds and more

but there no creature
asked for his tongue to move;
his naked feet in the surf were enough
and when his tears wedded the waters
the sea made not a sound

lone falcon high in flight, what grid of ground
is magnet to your sight?

what engrams form in fine folds
hidden in your skull?

do you recall all that passes below
on a fleeting flat earth?

do you see my shovel fighting
the stubborn caliche?

to put my wife and child in dead dirt,
before you or your brethren dive

perhaps you will take pity on me, and see
you have other places to light:

the parched prairies around me,
where I pray the creator has left
you more tantalizing temptations
for your talons

a flock of them we call a ******,
though not what I did to ****** men
I shot on the Mekong, who did nothing
but startle me a muggy morn  

I watched them float,
face down in primordial mire,
not far from the wire, which
split their world from mine  

birds came by noon
greedy passerines perching, pecking
on black clad backs; they sang not a word
of thanks to me

though I had made a meal of men,
for those who drop from blue skies--not even
when the flesh pulled swiftly from bone, and
blood flowed silent over their talons

July 4, 1970, Mekong Delta, Vietnam

he looks to that place
hidden in the grey folds and
white matter where the words
and images are birthed

all he sees are blue beans:
jelly beans, frijoles beans, kidney
beans--all as blue as robin's eggs,
strewn on a pitch black field

he waters them to see
if they will grow, for surely
this field is of magic or
at least dreams

but, it seems, nothing
sprouts; the fallow field remains
the same: a bed for countless
beads of blue

he lays his stylus down,
a sword he wielded for naught,
closes his eyes for a final view,
and all he sees is blue

when he
was a young man,
come round up,
they would hit
the trail dead dark
before daybreak;

without a morsel
of moonlight,
he would follow
the rider in front
of him, watching
the glow of the cowboy's
hand-rolled,

while
he puffed away
on a store bought
Lucky Strike, to guide
the cowboy
on his tail;

this beacon,
a bead orange  
in a sea of black,
allowed for silence
among men

who listened
for the lowing
of the beasts
they were charged
to capture, and brand
for slaughter

broad daylight, a narrow highway...
what brought you there, sans your sour nocturnal song?
a racing rabbit I couldn't see
but you could smell?

and could you tell
how close my bumper
came to you when you scampered
across the road?

you had to feel
the wind of my wake
and hear the heavy hum
my tires make

though that did not signal
a close call with death to you;
only a sound you couldn't decipher,
and a tickling of hackle hairs

how delightful to be unawares
of the fickle sickle of mortality
that could have chopped you to pieces
on a hot stretch of asphalt

the boy enters when he knows
others will not be there
in prayer--their silent entreaties
to a god he is not sure
listens or cares

morning after mass is best;
the bouquets are fresh
he can smell them once
the scent of the early
worshipers fades:

the pipe smoke from the old man's
coat
the widow's perfume which lingers longer than the ammonia stench
of the holy homeless who is there
every day

Christ watches over this:
a white marble man bolted
to a cross, witnessing
this spectacle for millennia

long before this cold statue
was placed in this cathedral,
he was there, the slaughtered lamb
cursed to die again and again

that is how the boy sees it;
not a promised life eternal,
but the same death anon,
anon

the pounding of the stakes,
the blood offering: the old man, the woman, the mendicant
all crucifying him again with
each plaintive prayer

once their odors fade,
the funeral sprays, the bouquets
remain--cut, dying flowers,
a fragrant impermanence
with no expectation for life
beyond their time in the
vase--no imploring a godhead
for forgiveness

no demand for blood
and perpetual death

only a little water for their brief journey
in fragile glass