tangents
solstice
we were watching
falling snow
make soft topography
of drifted leaves
in the white arcades
of the streets
our figures passing
in window glass
there
and not there
when the wind carried
what must be
the carillon of St. Jerome
ringing evensong
from out of one world
and into another
we are breathing
the keen stilettos of the air
when did you lose yourself
so long ago I cannot recall
the psalmody recurring
then sentinel silence
city at dusk
if we could only see
this place
and our memories of it
as two parts
of the same truth
one we've lived
with another
we long to relive
but we moved
through them
one smoke
the other nothingness
solstice
if you find a place
where the sea
is coming
unconvincingly in
its surface
just darkened by cloud
the flagging tide
lying breakers softly down
like spreading shadow
ebb overtaking inflow
sanctified in wordlessness
wait there
funeral
in a chest sitting heat
he lay on the bier
systematic guards
moving clockwork
volley shots
piercing the haze
of the clouds
of mountains
silent mourners
memories
a lake white with light
the lovelorn
bugle sounding taps
locked our throats
palm sunday
only on this world
and not the other
are we fed
by a light so dim
memories approach
they speak
an augury
from a different world
speak to me
for once we were strangers
on what world
is the transcendent imminent
the crossing
from a train
scenes pass
behind a layer
of disused or forgotten
whips of Eocene weeds
tumbledown views
of screes of trash of
cars and gray water
a skyline resolves
and passes from view
the cars
in serpentine segue
enter the city
is it not time
a sudden tunnel
some emerge home
funeral
by the windbreak
and fallow field
cars come scaring dust
in his homeplace
where tall trees
hang their boughs
and bunchgrass
clutch unturned earth
on the causeway
crossing the lake
we saw a fisherman
in a flatbottom boat
see and suddenly
doff his boonie hat
and bow his head
and our procession passed
Centralia, Illinois
in the new light
of morning
gray rain comes
turning torrents skyward
I hear footprints
she said
fleeting memories
faintly seen
in still water
the storm passing
shadows the color
of ashes of roses
for Marian Roberts
1922-2016
death poem
memory is the background mind
one voice calling
awaiting answer
the music of snowfall
one side of the sky
fading orange daylight
clouds mimic the land
the gray ground void
all things
seen and unseen
found poem
where does the dawnlight go
what does it carry
the messenger
driving a two hand
clench of attention
fireflash the sunlight
machine gunning trees
and an electric arc
off the chrome dash
the great summation
of this holy work
to carry such news
heartquick the panic
stealing to the back
like a thief’s knife
called away
borne away by
ceaseless tides
the recreant moon
steals back the day
from untold shades of night
fixed on a sun-white sea
no helm for the helmsman
no answer at her rudder
a captainless craft
under sailtorn sky
will she breach
or pass unheeded by
seeking what is not there
or what was there
that forever called away
the river in the ocean
1
anapaest in echelon
three martins wheel
circumfluent shadows
round a house on a pole
lichened and askew
discordant in the breeze
blue black in their chase
they fly and fall fly and fall
then rise anew turning
2
where does our blood haste lead us
must we obey
to what body are we bound
the river or the ocean
the end as of an end
or its seaward dasein
adrift in sleek currents
or pitched by abyssal waves
of such torrents am I circumspect
3
in Ribeirão Preto
the hail threw down
in death an implication
the grandmothers lament
and rake bird bodies
from their frontage
what of our avowal
will we come to water as one
I don’t feel the earth