INEVITABILITY

We think that life

is a melody, 

but rhythm's 

more the gist of it: 

we sweeten in time 

with the rate of years' increasing;

we soften 

and fill out, 

while dying 

every minute. 

In pursuit of our truth, we lose 

touch with where we come from.

In pursuit of our freedom, 

we are innocent as apples 

destined to fall 

from their tree in autumn;

blushing 

as they ripen 

to their own 

destruction. 

GUESSWORK

Do you see 

how there's always 

a veil over things— 

a protective film 

on the touchscreen;

a haze of steam 

on our feelings;

a windshield 

between the joyriding 

brain and the landscape 

of reality?

Try as we might to believe

in our memory

and cry out 

to our contemporaries 

that we understand their pain,

the truth is 

we don't so much 

"state the case"

as pray; 

the truth is

declaring 

what the truth is 

makes as much sense 

as recounting 

last night's dream 

in the stark light of day.

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 would 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.