The older guys knew what to do:
dig a deep bed
and bury the coals under sand.
A survival tactic
they’d learned somewhere.

On that freezing night by the lake,
no one talked much,
just the crackle of cooling embers
and the weight of breath in the cold air.

I remember the heat on my back,
like the sun was buried under me
and our blankets were made of myriad stars.
We survived till morning
and followed the frost to the tracks.

may depress,
but I see it as the tree of winter
shedding its last leaves.

If it’s cold,
it’s only because winter
has paused over us,
resting without a coat.

If it’s grey,
it’s only because winter
hasn’t slept in days—
his face gone ashen.

Intellectually,
I’m indifferent to vicissitudes,
but my body feels the changes—
my body is the weak point.

I compensate—
growing leaves and poems
on my limbs,
that the spirit might carry
into Spring
what the body can’t.

Bread flour on the table
on my hands
over my mother’s apron

She'd dab some dough on my nose
and we’d both laugh

When she shook the flour
from her apron
an angel hovered in the air

When the loaves
went into the oven
it was like mother heat
and warmth
shaping the dough

That first taste
was the bread of life
the last taste
will be the bread of life

Why do I love Rachmaninoff’s Vocalise so much?
What has happened to me,
Overnight I’ve become an old man who weeps
For a song without words.
Is it because I’ve known the past,
Or because I know the future—
And that is a bitter knowledge to possess,
To know we will ****** each other again,
And that nothing changes
Across landscapes of madness.
Another Vocalise will have to be written,
And another me will have to suffer
The sadness of knowing,
Of hating who we are,
And of what we’re capable—
After all, there’s something tragic about music
If it exists to heal the wounds
That we ourselves inflict.

A house finch on a juneberry tree
Feeding
On the fruit
That has yet to be

for Brigitte

Give thanks for her hands,
For the years they’ve woven,
For the soft touch, the steady grip,
That’s held you through the storms.

Give thanks for the quiet nights,
For the way she rests beside you,
Not needing words to say everything,
In the silence, she speaks.

Give thanks for her eyes,
For their spark, their warmth—
A mirror to your own heart,
In their depths, you’ve found your home.

Give thanks today,
Tomorrow,
And every breath between,
For she is the song that calls you home
And the silence that lets you listen.

I twist them into strange forms,
Others—vile abominations.
They beg,
Cries thick with desperation,
To be people again.
But I tell them,
“You shouldn’t have stared so long.
I’m a poet, you know.
I have this power,
And no control.”