listen to the carefully made sounds,
crafted by southwestern winds,
full in birdsong woven
through the forest's top,
the rattle of seed in pod
and cone falling
upon the damp earth we tread.

this way is old and legend says,
it was the way of others,
keepers of these woods
before it was turned
stone and branch,
before it was deeded and sold
given one generation to the next.

the deed will continue only so long
until deep fertility reclaims
and renews, a marriage
of god and time, as
the wild grape, honeysuckle
and thorn over comes our paths,
a lover within whose body receives the seed.

and always the sounds linger
a broader scripture,
a bridesmaid singing in praise and love
and slight jealousy that the feast should be
for her and if not,
then for her whom she loves.

as this place is for us now in this moment
and soon for those whom the earth's
current will flow through,
it moves here now,
like it moved here then.

above the tilted gate,
rusted open
the white flock flies.

and i, walking below in
freezing hours in her untended lawn,
read the passages of her doubt.

the auctioneer's stare picks the pockets of vague men
as i read in her bible
the words of Isaiah underlined in red ink.

words cast aside,
an old lover inseparable for years.
knowing that her winter is certain,  
they point with bony finger
the direction she must go.


above in logical formations pushed and pressed,
they come before night,
smelling hard and arctic in their bones.
in their passage over, i count them
and their number provokes wonder.  

they disappear and more yet will come to be home,
to stream and glistening shore,
guests in the fields above a world in need of faith,
residing in its protection.

they simply resign
to that which compels their movement,
their beating hearts,
they are the rhythm,
the part and the whole.
and we mark their numbers and times and worth,
divorced from their value as they fall from the sky.


she had heard thunder and wind and
remembered when she longed
for breathing peace and the terrible grasp
around her breast to be released.

and her heart, as it was then,
was stirred to creation, invoking the name of the lord.
bent on her knees as the trees of the olives
she shifted her weight, a moon before a passing star.
she knew gratitude as wealth and prayer became easier
in the reflection of a dying eye.


she wandered parallel to the streams
of well traveled witness, to jerusalem.

she disrobed in a moment's sun,
and become dark in her losses.
cried dry sobs as the desert craved her foot prints.

stood before the one true love as he departed,
then returned to the dark hall and black alleys.
soft as the cloth in veronica's hand.

she searched the face, the delicate eyes and feather like love.
and the word, like smoke escaped his
lips and hung in the air around her head.


it is the rock, the sand and the salt
that will tell us the story. the obvious story.
the hidden story, the forgotten.

no amount of rain could flush the
damaged soil to the sea.
the nail was placed and the hammer spoke.
the report rose through the air
as transparent as smoke,
echoed off the blooded walls assuming a
mortal weariness, driving deeper each strike
in to the caged centuries.

**
the white flock passes,
taking all but the untakable
delaying the hunger we know,
and forgetting the one we shouldn't.

in the hands of a stranger
her dusty iconography departs
incapable of being replaced
his is not the wooden nailed corpus perfect in death,
and he will come with you, or not,
soft as the cloth in veronica's hand.

often i heard her
under her breath say, father forgive them.
but she had fallen to disbelief
caught black sails in an internal wind.

and never had there been a night so long
or beautifully still as the small cross
laid on her breast as she looked up
to whisper a silent te deum.

to my ear it was weak.  
a thin fabric over the real.
she asked, who are we
among this scattered dust
wandering among the forest and hills,
to think we are more important
in the enameled blackened night
than the winded stars?

that vulnerability is a place to
fall through, drop lower from.
where are we in the harried minutes
between the rising of day, the density of sleep,
wishing as pretenders in the garden?

finding what is broken,
things to be repaired,  
should we ask the rounded questions
while around us elevated to disbelief
garish in speech and gesture, our gods fail us?

when my love has fled
the ninth moon to the gulf of mexico
and she arrives there warm,
i will walk the glazed field
beneath the moon of long nights.

when my heart is broken
not by her absence nor regrets
but by the shadows cast
in the moon's blue light
on the snow,
i will make songs
of her leaveing.

for i have known her return
for seven decades
i have seen that promise realized.

and after i become moonless
i will stand where promise meets the past,
both overdue and out of reach
hostage to hunger to bare my arms to the sun,
and sleep
a leaf in the glow
of an opal moon.

on the far side
of a field protected
in the space between the hedges
and the hardwoods of mourning
anna lies forever
watching the ocean.

a place salted by tears for her,
and laid out through seasons
begging not for change, anna rests,
as autumn sleeping,
always dreaming, beholding.

and above in endless passing
long angled lines,
flying to warmer climes
by the ten thousands,
great birds on the wing flee
the frozen winds coming,

and the seasons turn for them,
and one hundred thousand more fly,
and the country become as silent
as her trembling kiss
transparent in the blue moon lighted earth,
beneath a gleaming white crucifix,

where i will plan my days
to spend with her,
the flesh that is her words.
the words that were her blood.
again and often,

sometimes to burn them as fuel
to warm myself,
and others to rest beside them
as she rest now.

his talk was the talk
of the good soil prepared
in forethought to receive
names as seed.

cleared of bramble level smoothed,
clods broken to their fineness,
believably watered.

yet his way passed
over fallow abused field
where he loved more than most
the struggling roots
that survived pushing to air;
trees of fruit and wood.

the same wood he carried,
the same wood they pierced him to.

the sweetest fruit hanging
from lovely stunted trees
offered daily to those broken
among the rocks and thorns.

let us cultivate here,
seeded as bells ringing in
ancient summons,
that to serve is to be at peace.

let us not put aside, for
distance days hence,
looking not away but towards
this challenging landscape
with a child's innocence.

for our comfort is found in the hills,
found by night lamp,
found out bound on long
singing passages,  
found in the praise of
our infinitesimal days
and knowing what it means to
give and receive.

we will move inches
as if in great division, the
soft foundations of creed.
suffer the glance of the pure,
strain beneath the weights
that we have shouldered,
in preparation to receive the gifts
given without regulation.

to love the hand of the builder
and question the steward his excess.  
to seek, clarification and pardon,
knowing that in it, it is frail,
and we come in peace.