“In an instant”
Easily,
in an instant,
you could have not been born.
You could have had nothing.
You could have lost
the sun, the sky,
the slow moon ascending,
and the harmony
and flicker of leaves.
You could have lost
the rain’s splash
exciting the soil,
the blue beyond,
and the light
and absence of light.
You could have lost everything.
And I could have lost the same,
never knowing the cure
for thirst in a world without you.
“A song”
I know you are threadbare and worn
with the weary strike of iron
ringing the notes in your name,
And even the tireless minstrel
is tired of his own insistence
on solitude’s graceless strain.
Yet it had been enough,
and the mournful sounds a song,
Had we but moved without motion
in motion through the dawn.
“Her hand was writing before he was writing, then her hand was writing when he was writing and he was writing what she was writing. And his hand was hers. But hers was not his. Then his hand was writing, and her hand was writing, then hers was not, and his was not.”
“She didn’t look to see if he was looking to see if she was looking so he couldn’t see that she was looking. Time passed until she looked to see if he was looking to see if she was looking or just looking.”
“Too many words”
Oh Lizzy,
too many words and too much motion
to describe the branch’s sway
and the afternoon of your eyes!
Buzz, hum, and flutter are slower words.
City whisper heard from the hills,
and voices’ splash crossing the canyon.
Seep in, stillness,
settle the swell of the sea!
Too many words, too much motion
to feel the feel of the earth,
its grass beneath the hooves,
its spray upon the cheek.
With so little wisdom,
with circles and struggles and haste,
how can I hope to catch the ripple
of your breath on the glass of my soul?
“The moon found you”
Caught in the discarded straw
on the floor of the loft,
the broken rays reached toward you.
Like timid fingers they touched lightly,
then relaxed embracing your ankles.
Slowly, like a child entering water,
you were immersed in the light.
It moved like a gentle river
illuminating your cool flesh,
it flowed to the eddy of your knees
and grew in two rich currents
to meet at the top of your thighs.
Pausing, rising and falling with your breath,
tender waves rolled to your neck,
caressing your forelegs and breast.
As the light reached your eyes
I feared it might wake you,
so I blocked it with my hoof
and let you go on sleeping.
“He wondered what she wondered and if she wondered what he wondered when she had time to wonder. But he couldn’t wonder when he had to do what he had to do, or she had to do what she had to do, but when he didn’t, and she didn’t, they did wonder.”
“He said what she knew and she knew what he said but she couldn’t say what she knew. They walked thirty steps and said thirty words and counted each word that they stepped. He stopped when she stopped, until he could no longer stop, then he stopped, but didn’t say what he knew because he couldn’t say anything at all.”
“A lesson in beauty”
Because the flowers hide patiently
under the cool blanket of autumn,
because the spring comes quietly
with the sound of melting snow,
because the breeze touches softly
with the fresh fragrance of summer,
I will have to learn to see,
to listen and to feel,
if I am to find you.