Last week one could see
Across the valley
Through the trees
The sky was crystal blue
The air/light clear

Now the GREEN has come
Suffocating sight and sound
******* up the water
Drying out the ground

Warm air loving me to death
With its sweet breath

Cows chew on their cud
Sweet green grass
Entering their gut
Full of ancient worms
Fulfilling their cycle
This too shall pass

Just a week ago
Moisture in the ground
Footfalls fell so soft, so quiet
As we walked in churchly light

Mother earth was full
Until she felt the pull
That tidal call
Pulled into the canopy
By roots unfound, unseen
All to make the GREEN

Now the soil is bitter
As we make our way
We are betrayed
By crunching leaf litter

In the cool of the First morning
Wand’ring my own Eden
I am

The finger of God
Straightening a Trillium
While my cancer grows

Ever wonder
Why the broken bloom?
I heard the hole
Lets the light in

Tonight, I stepped outside
To get wood for the fire
And **** on leaf litter

The sun was gone
Almost/dark
Just a glow left
In the edge of sky

A bird sang strange
Basso profundo croak
A goodnight song
From fifty years before

It took me back
That lonesome time
Me just fifteen,
Changing schools and homes

I walked the woods
Shotgun in hand
Looking for answers

I would never have

You asked what was missing
“Is it the ***?” you said.
As though love were just kissing
And thrashing in our bed

It hurt to hear you say it
Did you not understand?
That I must pray-- not play it
My love be real, not rand

The body’s temple to the soul
So do not test God’s wrath
By mistaking as the goal
The thing that’s just a path

And there are many paths to tread
As you and I have shown
Charkras aligned made a true sign
That we two were God’s own

The bed’s a place you may embrace
In honest conversation
And feel the force of *******
That’s more than mere sensation

So when I say I’m missing
And when it makes me cry
Please know it’s more than kissing
And more than some *** high

Please know it’s about touching souls
and not just getting kicks
Please know it’s only heaven’s drug
That gives my Suzie fix

You wish to hear the languages you do not understand
The ones you knew before you learned to speak

To see and hear and taste and touch; to dumbly walk the land
To empty out, to make your mind more meek

And so you wander wild in woods, unmade unmasked unplanned
With rock and rain and bark and bloom and beak

You own surprise with babe’s new eyes, you know now why you came:
To know each thing just as it is; to never know the name
To **** the flower, to lose the power, to lust as you unlearn
To smell the earth, to die in birth, to drown in sweet return

Wonder in the forest lost
Feel plants fear the killing frost
Gasp, not grasp the all-around
Browse the forest’s lost and found

Try to lose the monkey mind
You must lose before you find
Brother bear and sister tree
I art thou and thou art me

Moving slow is not enough
To lose the lie that all is stuff
Wonder just how small you be
Staring up that trunk of tree

Life is death. Death is birth
Worm return to Mother Earth
None is better none is worse
Each a blessing, both a curse

The truth comes close could I but wait
And yet the time is getting late
I see the clearing up ahead
Where all the living live as dead

Things to do-must take my leave
Return to walls- goals to achieve
Miles to go before I sleep
My bidding bye makes Jesus weep

He touches me with that one tear
I walk back in and disappear
You ask how long must I sit here?
It took Mahatma seven year