the hillside in the heat, cursing the dust,cracking the brittle weeds underfoot,wishing a few more trees for shade.An Easterner especially, who would scornthe meagerness of summer, the drytwisted shapes of black elm,scrub oak, and chaparral, a landscapeAugust has already drained of green.One who would hurry over the clingingthistle, foxtail, golden poppy,knowing everything was just a…
This is a litany of lost things,a canon of possessions dispossessed,a photograph, an old address, a key.It is a list of words to memorizeor to forget–of amo, amas, amat,the conjugations of a dead tonguein which the final sentence has been spoken.This is the liturgy of rain,falling on mountain, field, and ocean–indifferent, anonymous, complete–of water infinitesimally…
the unforgettable first line,the cunning way the stanzas run.The rhymes soft-spoken and suggestiveare barely audible at first,an appetite not yet acknowledgedlike the inkling of a thirst.While gradually the form appearsas each line is coaxed aloud–the architecture of a roomseen from the middle of a crowd.The music that of common speechbut slanted so that each detailsounds…
of the wind sifting the leaves.Jeweller of the spiderweb, connoisseurof autumn’s opulence, blade of lightningharvesting the sky.Keeper of the small gate, choreographerof entrances and exits, midnightwhisper travelling the wires.Seducer, healer, deity or thief,I will see you soon enough—in the shadow of the rainfall,in the brief violet darkening a sunset—but until then I pray watch over…
are no less real for lying uncatalogued and uncounted.The fluent leaves speak only the dialect of pure being.The kiss is still fully itself though no words were spoken.And one word transforms it into something less or other–illicit, chaste, perfunctory, conjugal, covert.Even calling it a kiss betrays the fluster of handsglancing the skin or gripping a…
burning in his dream. Sleeppressed him like a stonein the dust,and whenhe should have risenlike a flame to jointhat choir, he was sickof travelling,and closedhis eyes to the Seraphimascending, unconsciousof the impossible distancesbetween their steps,missedthem mount the brilliantladder, slowly disappearinginto the scattered lightbetween the stars,sleptthrough it all, a stoneupon a stone pillow,shivering, Gravityalways greater than…
the mortgaged walls shifting in discomfort,and voices mounting in an endless droneof small complaints like the sounds of a familythat year by year you’ve learned how to ignore.But now you must listen to the things you own,all that you’ve worked for these past years,the murmur of property, of things in disrepair,the moving parts about to…
where the low-running streams are quick to floodthe grassy fields and bottomlands.A placeno engineers can master–where the roadsmust twist like tendrils up the mountainsideon narrow cliffs where boulders block the way.Where tall black trunks of lightning-scalded pinepush through the tangled woods to make a roostfor hawks and swarming crows.And sharp inclineswhere twisting through the thorn-thick…
Of unacknowledged love are no less realFor having passed unsaid. What we concealIs always more than what we dare confide.Think of the letters that we write our dead.
and trucked away. A three-time loser yanksthe Wheel of Fortune off the wall. Micepick through the garbage by the popcorn stand.A drunken giant falls asleep besidethe juggler, and the Dog-Faced Boy sneaks offto join the Serpent Lady for the night.Wind sweeps ticket stubs along the walk.The Dead Man loads his coffin on a truck.Off in…
