GIVE AND TAKE

At some point, 

it's alright to call it 

a night—

to tan 

for ten-to-twenty 

in front of the TV, 

to give those ropy 

muscles an 

Epsom salt soak, 

to raise your palms 

and kiss 

each majestic, 

and mountainous peak 

of their blisters. 

It's no joke 

to do the easy thing 

and cue up some music 

you already know, 

light a few candles 

and keep repeating 

as they glow 

that greatness 

is transient, 

and sometimes 

genius is 

ad-hoc—that even 

the illimitable 

Johann Sebastian Bach, 

despite all his leaps 

toward the glory 

of God, still had to fall 

back on the same 

dozen notes. 

TO SPRING

When you come, 

we will always call you 

mercurial; 

when you leave, 

it seems we 

are the ones 

who have changed. 

Besides, 

if your darkness 

and your light

and your warmth 

were so variable—

if your winds 

were so 

undisciplined,

and your rains

were so terrible—

then why 

aren't the incipient 

flowers more afraid? 

TO GOD

In the beginning, you 

were the word 

and the silence. 

You were 

light but 

also darkness.

You gave us names 

for you. You 

gave us 

stories, too 

many stories: 

how the world began, 

where the dead 

belong, 

what the unheard 

soul should sing.

But somewhere along the line, 

you let us 

do the talking. You stopped 

even telling us 

what to believe in. 

You decamped 

with our memories, 

our petitions,

our offerings. 

Because you do 

not listen, 

we feel we can

ask you anything.

TO THE SPOKESPERSON

Ever wondered: 

what does one 

blank space 

have to do 

with another?

Whether the air 

that hovers 

over the becalmed lake 

is anything like 

the empty sheet of paper 

before which 

you sit hunched, in pursuit 

of the answer?

If so, 

congratulations, 

you might be called

a poet—that is 

to say, a tortured creature 

damned to confect 

the explanation

that every kind 

of absence might be 

custom-

made 

of language. 

SOURCE

What we think of 

as joy 

is only 

peace-in-motion. 

What we take 

to mean peace 

is just love 

that's been frozen. 

But love 

is the tough one,

because it has no 

antecedent; 

it never evolved, 

and it did not begin. 

It exists 

the way light does

as a pretext 

for seeing. Or 

as heat does 

for living. 

Or like gravity—only, 

the analogy to force 

is quite coarse 

and and confusing.

Because sheer love

is so absolute 

that doesn't make us 

do anything. 

BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY

Perhaps it's 

mistaken 

to equate "peace" 

with "rest," since 

the best of our 

persuasions, beliefs, 

and opinions 

all seem 

to shrivel like 

leaves whenever 

some stress causes 

life to cleave, and it's 

much more like 

a reflex 

to frantically 

close that gap—lest we 

find ourselves 

trapped 

in the uninhabitable 

space which 

now spontaneously 

seems to exist

between 

the startling feeling 

of having been 

awakened 

and that helplessness which is

so often confounded 

with the certainty 

of sleep. 

TO MY DYING BREATH

On my last day 

on Earth, you'll wish I wasn't 

such a coward 

who dreamed 

of sequences viewed 

out of order, 

and squandered your predecessors  

begging pieces 

of advice 

regarding things being 

other than they were—and 

how to get there. 

But you'll only have 

a moment, so 

you'll have to be concise: just say

I never learned to see 

the beauty 

in what's necessary—

which would have to be 

the first, if not the only 

prerequisite 

of any 

life worth living 

twice.

UNRESOLVED

When the spent stars 

at dawn, commence 

to their wavering—

long overdue 

in disappearing, but 

not yet gone—

who am I 

to keep my eyes fixed 

on their glimmering, 

wishing on their embers

(every wobbly 

last vapor)

only that they 

could keep their 

lucky arms unfurled? 

I am not the kind 

who would starve 

in a forest 

just to spare 

the wild and brilliant 

plumage of its birds;

so why would I impose 

such a stagnant thing 

as beauty 

on the strange 

and mercurial soul 

of this world? 

UNSEEN POWER

The evening light 

grows dim 

as my conviction 

that it's never too late 

to be taught. And still, 

I walk on, lost 

in thought, past 

slumping shoulders, 

weeping trees;

past slow-moving 

pigeons, just begging 

to be caught. But 

this malaise 

of imperfections, 

these defects 

are distractions; this world

I know

cannot be such a brittle star.

If anything, it's 

a mousetrap—a lazy 

seduction: 

all things appear 

weaker than 

they really are. 

HAVE MERCY

There's a message for us—

written, perhaps, 

in the postures 

of gnarled and

prodigious old trees

who never grew guardian

limbs this sturdy 

to harbor 

the likes of these 

avian refugees; 

whose vigilant branches 

were never quite conscious 

of the hives in their 

midst, or their 

startling fragility;

whose thunderous trunks 

were never intended 

to shelter slender squirrels

in their winter

dens of rest—and yet? 

And yet, despite 

all of this, nevertheless...

ULYSSES PACT

Lucky me—

so thrilled to be a penitent 

servant 

to such a rough, devious 

master 

as poetry; 

forswearing 

understanding, I commit still

to her handcuffs 

for the masochistic privilege 

of coveting 

her keys.

A DEPARTURE

The thought is never far 

from the top 

of my mind 

that I would do anything 

to stop myself 

from decomposing. 

And yet, 

there's something 

in experience  

which shows me 

this is wrong:

it's something about 

the comforting feeling 

of a lozenge on the tongue; 

the way I perceive 

the sweetness 

more clearly 

the more its clean edges 

seem to soften 

and dissolve;

the way I seem 

to love 

even the smallest 

bit of my understanding 

most

the instant 

before it's gone.