Fir Tree

If you could speak
I'm sure you would

with your old
tongueless voice

what trees think
of endless nights

as the houselights dim
and dark, huddled shadows

of a dog and a man
walk beneath you

without knowing you
when you know them.

About spiders living
on your skin, sparrows

tucked in your arms
in cold, biting wind,

then fly from the tips
of your fingers to sky.

How the moon, just above
your limited reach sings

to your cavernous ears
reminding you clearly

you're small, waiting
under a mammoth of stars,

your nameless waiting,
your anonymous waiting

with your all-seeing eye.

Collapse

Try not
to dream

loudly.

Moths do.
Snails do.

I will try too.

The Cup

Holding the cup's handle
tightly, it's rim never touching
bottom but ours will.

That afternoon, a cup-full
of milk spilled on the porch,
like a linen sheet wrinkled

over a sleeping, invisible
body, the heat sucking
thick liquid into laced threads.

I thought of you, how
you cover me, an accident
drying on wood, the smell

of cream souring in sun
or on skin and imagine
the moment we landed

from cup to floor,
the handle broken,
the finger bleeding,

the loss of stability,
the beauty of freedom
when the cup fell.

Blue Coffin

I see blossom where
you see error. Tell me,
what damage is worth
a flower? The blue-mouthed

iris speaks a broken
language, lives a random
life, a squatter's religion.
Here is where the root

meets rock, its secret
self; again, muscular
precision moves
the walls of earth.

Go further, down
an unknown distance-
in the evening, burial
on the sun-less hill.

Touchstone

You can be a hero; the sun
is not your crown. Neither ant
or stripe-backed swallow
will change their path;

the wind will remain
pathless.

Pebbles pressed into ground,
their quiet existence supports
the weight of kings. Your feet
will not increase their pleasure;

their pleasure is
existence.

From the infant's mouth,
a trumpet sound; not a single
cry from a thousand stars.
The skies are full of glorious

comets that fall
invisibly.

Mouthpieces

Is anyone speaking
to me? Is everyone?

Still, with no sign
of residue, I know

the light has been
here, untouched,

ethereal, lasting.
You will not

convince me
otherwise.

Easter

This nation is a field of fire,
whose breadth, measured,

its mountains folding in
like wound around a sword;

a voice of thunder falls upon
this city, whose ears, deafened,

distracted by the crashing shores
becomes a woman in the desert

calmly praying for the dead.

Gather up the whitest wool,
prepare the clouds and earth,

for all that has been shattered,
broken- will witness birth.