LEAVES

          "[I]f Poetry comes not as naturally 
          as the Leaves to a tree it had better 
          not come at all." 
                    —John Keats 

There are times when the staggering
awe of the sublime
would only impair our
ability to function;

when painlessness
and clarity
and the inconsiderable pleasures become
the rule of thumb.

Just now, it is April
all across America—as we watch
the dense ruddy buds
and delicate gauze-white flowers

gradually grow to
overwhelm the branches;
and like it or not, all of those
prim little poems they promise—

so predictable, decorous, basically
dime-a-dozen—are not just
our most equitable hope;
they are the only option.

THANKS

In the beginning
was not the word,
in the beginning was the relation—

out of silence, speech
plain air
and aspiration;

out of isolation, merely
the judicious
use of solitude;

out of the huge
ineluctable gulf
between humans,

an I
who is talking
directly to you—

even though
that can't possibly
be true—

and of course: you, sitting there,
having
just woken up

like a god
who dreamt for light years
in a hall of gleaming marble

and for a second
couldn't remember
the full extent of their power

but now, without any effort
is constituting truth,
reifying the beautiful,

effortlessly winding spiral
after spiral
of light in the vacuum,

making
my little
universe happen.

IN-BETWEEN

Uncertainly, season quivers
into season, disturbing
the stagnant imagination.

In private—or behind disguises,
some have already begun
to wonder

what mass
reenchantment might
possibly look like.

But when the the answer
cannot be found
inside,

yet it refuses to be
depicted outside either—where else
might it lie?

QUIT WISHING THINGS WERE DIFFERENT

Again and again—
and again, let us wake up

and do what has got
to be done; let us stretch

and bend down to touch
the rutted toes of civilization;

let us tuck the pale sheets
of our stray thoughts, tensed

syntax, and go and rinse
the wistful sheen of last night's

dreams from our grave faces.
Let us remark without bitterness:

how priceless nevertheless are
the grim objects staring back;

how stark, prim, and cleanly
the spaces that contain them—

how momentous it is now
to find ourselves the previous-

ly appointed curators
of everything that remains.

APPREHENSION

I know this is not the first time

you've felt things

so huge, it was difficult for you 

to distinguish them 

from the force of gravity counterbalancing 

the spinning of the world.

All of the pain we're in now 

is similar; 

it doesn't have to be worth anything 

on paper 

but when we choose to consider it 

that way, it is.

If you can understand that 

you have seen through the trick—

you have just put yourself 

into the universe 

and then put the universe 

into your pocket;

and if you could manage 

to walk around like that 

for one minute of your existence

you could know everything 

and still not be able 

to do anything about it.

THE DIAMOND INSIDE THE MIND

Despite the dark waves
obscuring our position

the wintry winds of
turmoil blurring or plain erasing

the boundaries
between our realities and fictions—

the simple symmetry
of spring still arrives

like a diamond that gleams
inside the mind

none can doubt
the primacy of the image

or mute the message roaring
from awareness's periphery—

one day it will be okay
it will be fine

and pure
to balk and cheer

those in attendance will rise
in observance of who's not here

the white simplicity of chalk
will fall heavy and cover dirt—

first and third
then the foul lines

and of course
that glad paradise known

as home—all of those
crisply re-identified.

OVERCOMPENSATION

These mornings
as I sit strict and reflect
in the church of austerity

in silence—the plate
invariably come around.
And each day I give

a little bit more
than I was comfortable with
the day before.

I watch my private
empty spaces get
handed off—

mingling like garden pebbles
with all the bits
of silent reticence

of the others
gathered far away
in shrines

of their own design
who are doing the same
at this moment

and feel at once
both humbled
and fortunate—

encouraged and
deeply afraid
that together we may be

repaying a debt
which is too enormous
not to exist.