---

∴

will it take –
finally and only –
my decrepit age
‘fore i’m remembered
to my youth?

is it only by
the retired eye
that i more clearly might
look upon my days
and the sum
of all their houred parts?

when wide becomes the pupil
and thin becomes the veil
of time
as it
fictitiously ticks
along.

when vision narrows
to such a stream
the world cannot blur or muddle
and crystalline
becomes the view
of all the hoaried life i’ve led.

my greatest works
have been, in silence, bred,
as prayers,
sung soft in storms
but that carried on the wind

to future selves
and tomorrow’s me,
that is
waiting

waiting.

∴

 

 

---

 

---

∴

i sank deep
and into his knowing
like my breath
was paper he read me upon
and turned  –

till i changed.

 

what canon is made
if not by the page?

by the letter, in fact,
by the eye.

 

but eyes close
as do covers
as they lay over bodies
of flesh
and of work
whose epic tales
still ceaselessly spin
though no longer read
by their reader.

 

alas, we post-humous poets
who never knew
how much we’d been known
in the days
that our stories were penned.

 

there is more,

more

that i wanted

to say…

∴

 

 

---

---

∴

how dare we –
any of us –
do the things we do
in the name of love
or out of spite
for not receiving it?

how dare we, indeed?

how dare we?
to have loved like that?
and how dare we, now,
love less than the much
that we wanted
to have been loved
ourselves?

 

and how?

o,
how

do we dare
to love

again?

∴

 

 

---

 

---

∴

i saw her face
peering from the bottom corner of a window
as if to say,

“i want to see
but am frightened by its knowing.”

and i tried not to linger my eyes
too long
on her small frame –
tucked down into the corner of a large one –
as i drove away.

 

the world needs surgeons
and scientists,
builders and buyers,
counters and curators of cash,

and i, of course, thought it best
to contribute.

for some sort of feeling of success.

 

the price of love,
after all,
is too costly
in a world of values to be exchanged,

and the yield cannot be quantified.

 

so i sold the house
with her still inside
and i moved to the city to win.

i won smiles and papers and amusements of cheese,
little applauses and louder high-fives
and an audience of ne’er-do-wrongs.

contracts and deeds and leases and loans,
and a french press to get through the day.

hobbies in vogue and political standing
that ensure i’ll have something to say
should the conversation dull
to a pensive lull
and left behind mem’ry
litters in the air –
still there –
uncomfortably noticed
as a facial bruise.

 

so i cling to devices that talk back in my voice
and say “look how busy you are.”
and busy’s a good indication of value…
go on so you can go far.

far

far back

far forward

far down the road
that always leads

always

to disheveled and sweet
and curious brows
that peek from the corners of windows.

∴

 

 

---

 

---

⋅

now the bed is tidied,
and you’ve put the socks away
and the lines of the rug

are neat

against the wood grained floor.

 

and you feel glad
and grateful
that the big mess is over.

it’s over

it’s over.

 

but where did you flit
the forgotten one?

the disposed bauble
made of dust and dreams

that entertained and broke for you –

that made happy the cracks –
and smiles in the fissure –
and leaked balm
by udders
pressured.

that salve is too slippery –
like whale fat on a deck –
to be left in trim houses.

 

have you swept it far enough off?
have you shook it from the linens
and beat if from the drapes,

that it could float again
free
from the scrutiny
of all that cleaning?

⋅

 

 

---

∴

i’ve been thinking a lot
on our collective adeptness.

in our brief little existence
we have figured out
how to walk upon the moon,
harness atoms,
and espalier trees.

we can even shape them into
fantastic gazebos
that rise above us.

 

we have managed to
compose symphonies
that rouse the heavens outside us,

and have written canons
to reflect the heavens within.

 

we have named stars
a million miles above us
and polished stones
that live a thousand miles below.

we have discovered calculus in numbers
and pietas in the rock,

we have cultured yeast and vegetables
and hybridized the flora,

we have irrigated, cultivated,
harvested, and preserved.

we have shaped and shined bronze
and erected towers made of steel.

 

we wingless creatures
have even taught ourselves to fly.

 

but oh,
to forgive…

this pebble does trip
and confound
the most capable of beings.

how magnificent the mind
that can master
that craft.

∴

 

---

 

∴

there will be times
you’re called
to wrap a heart.

like all good and fragile gifts,
it should be
handled with care.

sometimes, you have to sit far away
and wrap it with your mind

because to get too close
to a heart that needs wrapping
could break it.

hearts must be wrapped

in compresses
for so to stop the leaks,

in oils
for so to be soothed,

in gauze
for so to breathe,

but never,
never wrap a heart
in a box.

this will never do.

they stop the growth
for lack of light
and because the heart
isn’t shaped
to fill tight corners.

the walls of those boxes
even cut off the flow to veins
and the whole creature

wilts,

though animated
still.

 

to wrap a heart
you must hold
little messes
that seep and weep
through your hands

and know that hearts get better
the greater care you take
in their mending.

∴

 

 

---

---

 

∴

 

he stood there –
a stallion
on the steppe –

pounding the earth
to prove his hoof’s worth

and whipping the air
with wild hair;

cursing it –
as if
it –
had kept him from flying.

 

my God,
what a beautiful creature.

 

how fierce is freedom fought for
and deadly when too long kept.

 

o, that i could have run with you.

 

maybe
maybe
i could have.

before the tall grasses burned
from wayward sparks

lit

by an unmanned hearth
that set our world ablaze.

∴

 

 

 

---

∴

though stripped of all my clothing

i was robed, and went walking;

cursed and accused and scandalized

and still, with love, kept talking.

 

i ached from under injustices

and eyes that turned away.

how hard the frightened heart becomes;

how soft the heart that stays.

 

i betrayed, and betrayed i was

these scales aren’t made to weigh.

no balance held is fair or just

no debts be kept;

i can’t repay.

 

all the pleas we issue hence

to strangers fall away,

but to the knower of our souls

i pray, i pray,

just stay.

 

∴

 

 

---

---

∴

what do you set your sights on,

my love?

to what end to you travel?

 

would you have us braided, blessed

or burnt-frayed and unraveled?

 

i see you spinning ‘round

as i have spun in turn;

if we survive this whirlwind,

our balances be earned.

 

and then,

while everything

whips around you, still –

 

and it will

oh, how it will –

 

take heart.

take care.

take aim.

∴

 

 

---