Petition

O Lord,
Let me not mistake
the blindly groping after a
Candle to shine into the mirror
for Love.

Nor let me think
any consummation
be completion on this
unfinished Earth.

Gloucester Revisited

We perch on the rocks,
Our feet gentle sparrow claws curled
around the grooves,
In the summer that will not die:
Slanting spear-light on water
Small smooth stones skipping out to sea
As our feet across the stony gaps.
Joyful, free, until in the shade:

A goose, long neck wrapped around its body
At rest, swarmed with flies
Suffering that does not suffer.

Your stones skipping so far
Nimble, precise, 
Past the edge of vision into the sun.
Then, the glistening black otter
Stretched out beneath my feet
Shining, swimming towards a shore
It never knew it reached.

These prophecies of decay, their signs
and symbols, must all come true:
This world will never come again.

Migratory, I return there
to the summer that would not die,
the warm rocks that hold back the sea
and frame the sky's chandelier -
What nature foretold, is realized.
The sun slants over the water
as the evenings grow short
in a rush of wind, the
hushed breath telling me tales,
Winter without your warmth
As the sun slips deeply
and those still-smooth stones grow cool beneath me:
In darkness, loss.

Not long away, perhaps on a day like this
of strange brightness,
I will cede you to the West, while
The tide rises forever and
Joy's long struggle
Washes over all that was a
Warm birdsong of hope,
Freedom of solid ground, and
The patience of a twisted tree.

Nature

she whom we call Mother
destroys us all:
even as we call out her name,
she crushes us.

beneath the sun's broad gaze,
she kills her offspring
if not with time,
with fields of ice,
or hot ravenous tears.

with roaring, rattling bones 
and the red hot blood of her core.

The Aftermath

Lying there awake
After, staring up at

I don't know what -
Your arm draped across
Night in the window
Half open, your mouth and
The murmuring breath

- happens or means happiness
Peace comes to those, 

Wondering: if others think all
Rushed and overlapping
part conscious.

- who sing night to themselves.

The cool breeze becomes
Shivering, curling closer
More regular in my ear

My receding visions,
Ceiling drops away
More widely spaced

So heavy and free,
like icebergs newly calved.

Fragment

The constancy of regret,
my truest friend
you have the power to keep
the past ever alive,
dancing before me

the warm, sorrowful longing
wells up when i revisit
that youthful faith
or curl up against
the black jersey bedsheets

"If This Should Be, I Say:

You of my heart!"*

I miss you,
the waves crashing
on the backs of our heads...

Meanwhile,
your blood spilling in the parking lot
racing in circles
of bright drops flying
trying to find the long-beloved,
now-forgotten place

I wrapped you up warm,
said I'd never run away
Even as my feet were already
jumping forth into that autumn.

What will I do when you leave
for all the more beautiful places?
When it all comes again
The price of adventure, solitude
and fulfillment, the fruit of abandonment.
And thus,
the world will avenge.

Then, comes the quiet thought,
of a solution rooted in failure,
and its companion:
abject imprisonment.
But just a thought,
Never a wish.

Outside of myself,
Everywhere is too far away. But yet,
Nothing can be held so tight
without bursting into hundreds,
Thousands of streaking shrapnels.

And so,
I am always letting go.

All life is letting go
Never holding onto anything,
Not even a breath.







* ee cummings. sonnets/unrealities xi

Moose Mug Misfortune

O moose mug,
My favorite mug!
From your lips I have sipped
O! so sweetly
Tea (and other beverages)

Every morning,
And sometimes in the evening,
I have turned to you
Seeking comfort and warmth
Two long years!
Have we shared in peace
and contentment.

And when you were broken
I could not let you go
No, never
Would I toss you away
Like any ordinary mug!
For I believed that superglue
Could heal all wounds,
And make you whole again.

Your scars barely noticeable,
We carried on as before,
Two counterpart vessels for
Tea.

Until, alas,
One fateful morning,
I filled you with boiling water, and
Watching it turn a dark Earl Grey,
Grasped your handle, which
Even as I lifted,
Broke!
Yes, ripped apart that strongest
Of all glues, sending
Fresh tea in a scalding river
Over counter, legs, floor...

O moose mug,
How I grieve at your demise!
As if at the passing of a true, dear
Friend. But,
A large, scalded portion of my leg
Reminds me of the pain
Of our most recent meeting.

Moose mug,
It was not your fault.
I will search the world
For an even stronger glue!
To make you whole again,
For breakfast is become lonely
without you,
O my moose mug.