FROM HERE TO THERE

Go through the wall
when you get back

a dust pours
over your hands 

your soul was once substantial
oscillating in the mud face

you wear dry
through fanned air 

Between dignity and intimacy
you can now inhabit

the long countryside
under construction, 

ribbed passage 

through bulwarks,

and the clanging bell
of darkened light.

THE COMPLETE PRESENCE

The complete presence

of almost nothing

- the person vanished -

stirs its memory, embodies

name, voice, and gesture,

forgets the face.

Unawares, others trust -

only I am

watching this familiar

relatedness turn duplicitous,

the man seeming

equal to no

more of distance

than umbilical measure,

is, will be, has been

uncoupled - finessing

recall from indistinct

imaginings. His silence

breaks the trance

of speech, will

cracks, forcing acts

to hope for

incoherence or movement

toward vital, joyous

enterprise. The car

pulls out, heads

for the horizon's

linear necessity,

scraping past perspective's

diminishment. Clouds flatten 

feeling, the storm

moves in, and an entrance-

way door closed

prematurely.  Skittish

with indifference?  Bowed?

The beyond boomerangs,

and the here

comes back to

returns life from

what he had

thought to put

behind.  Others.  Estrangement.

THE DANCERS

This has never happened

that things are the way they are

because they could not turn

The dancers, staged to question,

improvise.

What could be more real

than the body?,

when individual expressions

become an ensemble’s

disclosure through 

form’s achievement

a dream of scattered presence

re-assembled 

and for the self (which is the audience)

original emotion 

shaped by attention

focused every instant

here, where we are, as we are

      *

The dancers

are floored

to start, heaps

that separate

into the limbs

of trunks

tunneling

air, narrowing

proportion

in a wanton

flurry of leaping

motion

triumphant

grace of simple

lines no one

knew were drawn

      *

You carry your feet

with your breath,

lifting the pounding heart

from its cavity,

and ranging with intent

over a prophetic space

knowledge cannot reach

to put a hand on

      *

There are no lights,

but lit by wrist and fingers

upturned faces

display moon masks

until the shoulders drop

and the arms flare

as elbowing wings bank

into a spiral flight

hips pivot through

FAMILY PORTRAIT

Pop songs, on a radio,

scratched at the darkness

Doors shut and opened

throughout the house

Your parents were snoring

but nothing was trustworthy

Chance had left you

to wall and ceiling angles

that converged, like feelings,

foreshortening corners

In a dream you ventured out

into the unfamiliar woods

prowled trees

adorned with scalps

and the dead snapped back,

stinging across the face.

Scurry, dampness,

and torch light

,

turned the warrior

back for breath.

No telling how

frightened or captive

the family would look

in the kitchen, in the morning

THE MIRACLE

We came upon
and entered
creation by chance,

participating
in an unfolding
of events

that went on

without us.
Fire was the event 

that turned my desire.

*

Either and Or

set up the choice.

To take a breath
before I needed one

to flash out
of my appearance.

The sun always got dizzy
from its fear of heights.

HEALING DAY

A white owl with red eyes

lands the sky

We twist around, go for

the open garden’s edge

drawn to the sounding river

because the back

is a flowing river

rising to silt

the danger

darkness has become

     *

The lover, the friend,

and the stranger

each will betray you

the lover for passion,

which is beyond reproach,

the friend for gain,

which will not last,

the stranger for evil,

which has no recompense

With each you must go

willingly, permit all wounds

to bear weight 

lost directions,

scar threading sinuous

complexities

     *

The brightening light

we wade in

obliterates distress

powerful

as a mountain,

as its agile lion,

moving past

the owl still

until the last

wing feathers 

stitched to the taxidermist's

skeleton

WHEN THE POEM MOVES ON

The starting point is at the bottom

you get to using words, their tilted

sounds and false show, for support.

Surefooted, laconic, and culpable,

you work moves past embellishment

girding image with mendicant emotion,

constructing loss by left to right ascent

that altogether disappears

inverted sky, an empty bowl

when something happens off the ground.

This is the poetic leap,

finished with meaning, and there is nothing

     

about it to point at.  The poet goes back

to the articulated house.  Its brick

chimney draws smoke above a gable roof.

HERONS

Spaced along the shore 

like chess pieces in an end game,

stalking, patient, still

feelings sorted, thoughts 

not meant to arise 

and feed off memories.

An egret moves suddenly,

stabs at a fish in the water,

swallows it whole.

Then what you desire

(and you are always in pursuit)

folds into difference

needs recalled as pleasure. 

You brought rod and reel.

Always, the scout of wind,

water’s white caps. 

Past lives float upside down

in the lake swells,

and just beneath the surface,

anger glinting like a silver lure. 

The sky fathers traffic,

twigs carried in beaks,

a landing dance 

of plumes and clapper. 

The knowing self points out

a female heron, lining 

the woven nest 

awaiting ritual, high 

in a tall tree's chill

and the rookery's noise.

The place will be defended.

You go away. 

.