So They Say

The flowers are sweet. Even
in the dark their scent
is color. To grow in light
is to wait in darkness. The sea

rolls in carefree as new love,
pulled back by the strength
of its own gravity, reluctant as
a thief. A stranger knocks

on every door; his life is sweet
and sour. We watch him turn away
to sleep beneath the bridge's spine,
alone and tired. So like life

the fool adores his rubble, rain
rushes towards its earth. Night
and Day dream of possessing each
the other- so they say.

Translation

Hold the glass, you cannot hold
the air. To words that raise
the glass- be wary. Reverence
is ironic on the grapevine;
that which overspills is lost.

Let us not examine beauty for
its purpose; symbolisms bear
countless searching eyes. Instead
remember what has moved or held
you long enough to change you.

The Golden Moth

Ten years after he died,
his body moved like night
through the city. Every star
a splinter in his eye, the moon
his skull, the pine his arms.

What has given back his flesh,
his hair and bones, two stems
of wing to wander from a grave
cut dark into my soul like meteors
or ocean's deepest undertow?

To lovers after they fall prey,
a piece of you will follow what
you've loved and touched as surely
as the worm encased in hoary webs
will rise a golden moth.

Stepping Down

Here are stairs to heart,
eleven steps to adoration. Down,
down through rock and dust-
secret lives of those who loved
without breaking time.

Such a darkness! The truth
of darkness, science of a lost religion.
Every insect knows its place and burrows
in. This is where the fires die, cold
as nature's bones.

These fingers holding, bracing
faces turned to ash and air, fragile
as the snow-flakes falling, whose lives
are just as brief and tender. Here are
stairs leading to the underworld-

a basement for the soul.

Threshold

I have not sadness
when I am dreaming;

no needs within
the fluorescent purple

night. Not like wolves
who walk with hunger

in their yellowed eyes or
screaming birds circling

through the clouds. At the end
of my road, I'll tell my story

for now, I am making it-
rays of light, dense darkness,

a carpet made of grass
and flowers, the rose's

beating heart, the heavy
rains falling like a thousand

drums on the silvered roof
of God's house. Prepare

to wake! the ancient sun
begins its morning prayers;

the voice that lifts
the mountains up and far

into the air pointing
towards a distant threshold.

We Don't Need the World

The ground on which we walk
is not our soil; o particles
of granite, slivers of glass

remember who we are when we
are gone. And Time's eye
dreaming of deliverance falls

fast asleep beneath the shadows.

Outside, the small black birds
tunnel through the sky; save
your little bodies for the tulips

who absorb your perfect songs,
your blue-black feathers, drinking
you like river water. Which flower

stings your heart like dying?

Soon our feet, bare and white
ripple through the sand like
sifting sands erasing who we are-

glittering, dissolving.

Filled with Heart

Though there were three of us,
I was chosen to be un-chosen.

The symbols and signs at birth,
high branches climbing low twigs

shade the forest so that smaller
creatures are blinded, live

in the dirt instead of sky.

Once was a heart that lived
outside of its body; every night

the windy chill froze the muscle;
in the heat of day, sunlight

set it on fire. Till one day
the wolves took pity and tore it

apart. They marched off single-file;
stomachs filled with heart.