Poetry or Happenstance?

Blindness said to Darkness:  without gravity, it is coincidence
we've met here.  And of sight, forgive me if I say:  not all birds
can sing, some can't even fly.  Do you suppose they know
what they are missing?

When we close our eyes, we know what color
blood is, how warm the sun, how deep the night,
how unfathomable the sky. By chance, we touch
the wings of morning as it's rising only

to mistake its thousand voices as a prayer.

As gift, the light bestows shadow to the body
so it might shade the sweetness of its sorrow
from the world,  repair the scars that burn
its hidden soul.  Is it circumstance

that brings us hope?


And of the dead, their clay-brown eyes
and melting hearts,  each one dreamt
they might be you or you them without
pause or concern or regret.  Not all dreams

are dreams; how can we trust them?

In every unknowable knowing-ness,
what passes ends, what grieves forgets,
what watches helpless learns to lift,
what fails reverts to finishing a thought,

a word, a question, perhaps, a poem.

Stealing Away

Now more often against its nature,
the heart separates itself from light
like a wooded creature black-mane
peppered gray, crooked boned, its head
hinged down looking for that dark place

to rest awhile or die.

Some things of beauty hide themselves
or what is left of beauty-  not to save the eye
or mind but to shame it, to chastise it, to remind it
of what is lost, perhaps of what may come-

always the heart beats soundly
until it stops.

We were made for this:  patience, leaning away,
how the beautiful keep looking for a darker
corner to slip into.  See the fibrous edges
of the heart blur and soften.  See what once

hardened us, strips away.