Sound and Light

The pianist's fingers touch. The keys
respond with terrible resonance.

What we think we understand
is capable of killing us.

Ivory has its own story. The quiet
deep density of teeth, of tusk.

The way it captures and releases
sound, its secrets.

O! let light and love, how it seduces
us tremble so exquisitely.

Parables

What was God thinking
giving this man a tongue,
a word, a weapon? A game

of chess, perhaps

a crafty succession
of lessons.

The Butcher's Wife

You made me watch
in the room that was made
for gutting chickens and goats.
You made me watch
you

cutting their throats, your hands
the color of strawberries. Your face
hard as bullet-proof glass, thick, opaque
and soundproof. Eyes like gravel. And how

through my nausea, I thought of sex,
how similiar the feelings: fear, then horror,
the downward, slick, graceful then upstroke
of the knife tearing through skin, muscles

and tendons, splitting the explosive artery.
How the body falls from the hands, quickly
as if filled with stones. Its head twisted back,
its mouth filled with blood. The way that you skinned it

pulling the feathers and fur, angled your blade
and expertly cut away.

The Trauma of Ignorance

When you reach the edge,
the history professor said...

his students squirming
in wooden chairs, tapping
their feet, watching the hands
of the big industrial clock.

When you reach the edge
be sure to bring a parachute.

No one was listening.

Now I knew that most of us
would die from falling-

an unplanned, careless
violent ending.

All Brides are Like Paper

White, like paper. Frail
like paper. Blank

like paper before
the pen takes

its innocence;

like trusting brides
who have no idea

how the ink
of men-

written

across their faces,
their bared, opened chests,

their beautiful, pristine
untouched wilderness-

will change them.

Exhaling

Tongue like fire, throat lined
with kindling to drive the flame
down to the furnace. Ash-winged
the soul flies up and out
remembering nothing.

Is this what you wanted-
to forget the trauma
of leaving?

Still warm in its vein, blood
struggles to remember, to move,
to resist the coolness which spreads
so quickly from the smoldering bricks

like steam of everything life
breathed in, burnt up

and exhaled.

Peril

Each night,
the brown owl calls

into the hollow
darkness, risking

discovery.







.

Forces of Nature

Down by the train-tracks, I found
an arrowhead. Triangular shaped, its body
speckled like a sparrow egg. And small
in the palm of my hand as my fist
folded over completely.

My father worked for the railroad. Rock Island
before it became the Southern Pacific.
He brought us flattened quarters he set on the tracks
to show us how heavy a train could be, what weight
could do if you harnessed it.

In the dark, trainwhistles called
like coyotes, one steel animal to another.
What they were saying: this is the sound
of weight, of damage.

When I showed my father the arrowhead,
he rubbed the sharp edges between his fingers,
pointed out the irregular chips on its surface.
Imagine, he said, stone against stone,
the force of a man against nature.

Recovery

What mouth cries to feed upon
what muffles it? Please,
don't let this happen to me-

to be overcome by becoming,
to be persuaded by learned fears.
Don't let this happen to me.

First, the bird sings.
Satisfies the tree. The winds.

Or did the dream of singing
break and wounded, choke upon
its own sad beauty? Secondly, we live

and so we live gorgeously. The merits
of our stories, the strings that shake
and quiver beneath our calloused fingers

shape our destiny. Every chord
be true, be humble, be music.

Mythology

All gods have a history. How
they were born from the womb of stars.
How they were chained to mountains
with eagles plucking at their hearts.

Where they froze enchanted by the vision
of their own startling beauty in the reflection
of a quiet river.

And then, there are men whose
history was made by stars,
by mountains, by the beauty
of their hearts.

What eagle's fury
picks at their bones?

Where are the rivers
that cast their spells

to capture them?

The garden they began in, their dream
of home, of country, of kingdoms

ancient as mystery.

How to Disappear

The red chair remains there,
in the porch room. My blood still
on it. Two cushioned wings

that you could disappear in
if you pretended to be air.

What hiding place now
can equal its value?

The mind has forgotten how
to be quiet and vanish. It has
deserted its magic.

I should have disappeared
in that chair when my talents

were useful.

The Numbing Gray

This infernal buzzing, the clamour
of excited gatherers of sweet, frenzied
by the petaled honey.

You are not a bee.

Further down, in the tight-bladed
grasses, the cool, silence of soil,
steadily labors

the numb, gray earthworm.

Only the River

The final stab of light passes through
its victims: the poplar trees, the corner
of a wooden shed, the window facing west.

Some dark, sleeping eye opens, then
flutters out with flaming wings.

The hills are listening. The woods
are listening. The skies large ear
pressed to ground, listening. Only

the river has heard and
understanding, slowly continues

its shivering journey.

Snow's Blood

The remainder of life, no!
proof of life, steaming red

spilled on cold, white.

A fairy tale of life
as it suddenly seemed

believable.

The Underworld

She left her wet prints on the road
that speak her secrets

without permission
or persuasion;

darker, heavier air
inters their language-

an enviable ending.

Not two but three wolves
on her trail named: Love,

Vitality and Permanence
followed by a crow-

the black-winged
shaman's journey

over and above
the underworld.

It's Original Purpose

Engage one, or both. What have
you seen- immaculate circle

of silver, heaven, the incised body
of angel, unadulterated awe?

We read tragedy, the fall of light,
the loss of movement as sacrifice;

how naive this is...

but the effort is more
than worthwhile.

Such Shine

What you'd hoped would dig you
up from that lasting place
of darkness, has let you lay.

You spoke to many men of science
about evacuation. No one came
to free you.

What course, what strategy,
what artifice of habit stirs

you're faith?

Such shine, the sun,
such love.

Knitting

I can name names. A few more than
disciples but all were more like Judas.
The first one was John. At twelve,

I thought: I could be a nun. All my dreams
of men were faceless, blonde but faithless;
then I married him. Knitting is not my skill;

the intricate twirling of needle against needle,
the clash of steel pulling wool around wool.
And what have you made in the end?

A ridiculous sweater or a scarf
with holes that won't keep out

the cold.

The Movement of Thread

You sleep. I watch you sleep.
The spider waits in web watching
the thin, silver thread (the strength
of what she's weaved) anticipates movement
before there is death.

Love lights down like the shadow
of body and does not stir the air.

There are memories of movement;
the heart's eye focused in, tensed,
its shoulder muscles flexed. The bird

spotted the spider, dove in quickly

and missed.

The Vacuum of Eternity

Not nine lives, but one.
Do you ever wonder how a single
person can generate so much garbage

and where

does all this garbage come from?

Mountains crumble into thousands
of pieces by the end of their lifetime.

And think of the massive bone collection
of animals, people, lizards and trees, fishes

and flowers piled up

over a century.

My God- eternity
needs a Dyson!

Thinking About So-Many Souls at the Beginning of a Rainstorm

They're out there: little packages
of soul wrapped tightly in their skins. Some buried

deep in the stack while others are visible
at the rim. Now, as I look across sky

gray-dark clouds hanging low
pregnant with wind and rain, I think:

they must be seeing this too

from some other direction or just below
the stormline. A few early raindrops

collide against glass and I know
there are millions more to come.

O Holy Night

Wood paneling. A photograph
of Jesus at the foot of the bed.

Two windows juxtapositioned
so I can see the woods and star-stained

sky without straining my neck.

Do you think God listens to our prayers
if we pray them backwards?

O Holy Night! This is my childhood.
My black-hooded coat. My blood-nostriled horse.
My dark, winged bird. Which window

shall we fly through-

into the woods or the star-filled skies?

Waxing the Heart

"Are you cleaning?" he asks.

No, I am writing again; no time
for cleaning.

The pots and pans do not mind,
the small collected balls of dust
do not mind, the mud-pawed dog
does not mind that I am busy

dreaming.

Uncollected Fruits

For now, the peach in my hand
will have to do. Do what?

Help me remember my home.

But this peach is round, perfect,
smooth and reminds me of nothing
I can claim as my own. Here,

on the ground by my feet
are the fruits of my memory-

cracked open, sweetly
perfumed, overly
ripening.

Someone Else's Life

You must have been six years old. Seems now,
someone else's life or a made-up one like
the foreign film with the little girl who pretended
her dead mother alive. And no one believed her

until she woke up on a cold winter morning
wearing the sweater her mother was buried in.

They say: "stars have died by the time you see them."

You must have been six years old when recurrent dreams
of lions and horses, fences and fire meant nothing
and stars were alive

exactly-when

their shine moved through the windowpane.