Bounded

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we seek the divine in our own way

just now i find it in an unsprayed fenceline

and in the sky behind it bordering the road

 that leads me home

no one lives my life but me

boundaries imagined

River and Valley

for a long time i stand in light rain looking across the valley

listening to the sound of the river deep in the valley

rushing over stones smoothed by the river

rushing through the valley for a long time


the river flows on without returning

this is the one river of night and day

and i am an apparition of light

unable to resist looking across the valley for a long time


evening folds into itself and night rises behind me

spreading its cloak over the valley

where for a long time the river rushes over smooth stones

and even a long time is not long enough

—with 3.5 lines by W.S. Merwin

A Deepening

deep enough now to hide in

the field awaits

clouds slide by in mutation

the sun in its arc rises and falls

a thousand creatures

go about their business

all within reach

hear what i'm saying

all within reach

Grand Coincidence

to be alive with you

on this same place

hurtling through space

is so startling

it leaves time for little else

hold fast

—adapted from a line by emily

Instinctive

Fireflies and stars. Please enlarge by clicking.

the forked river of heaven connects us

tonight it flows around me in the field

i hold my breath

One to the Other

thank goodness

thoreau wrote

they have not

learned how

to cut down

the clouds

meet you there

Solstice with Fireflies

night at its ebb

but longer nights to come

day at its peak

but shorter days to come

all of life is cycles and balance

this i knew apart from myself

in the diffused light of the solstice

a silver day with sky on the ground

a calming quiet steadfast haze

pulsing now with a galaxy of fireflies

under the weaker stars

brave because i said i would be

on the cusp of a new phase

Enter Orlando

drifts he down

into the darker

cooling valley

and hangs his pledge

upon the trees

that the thrice-crowned

queen of night may see

—referencing "As You Like It," act 3, sc. 2

Under the Mandrakes

i want you green

green and ripening in green shade

ripening to green

i feel it in my mouth

green and thirsting

agony green ferment dream agony

this is the world agony agony

tomorrow love will be rocks

and time a breeze under the mandrakes

but green as we go

green all the way to the end

green i want you green

—after Lorca on Whitman with lines from Lorca but unlike Lorca

Where Did You Go?

you were still

not even the mosquito moved you

from the earth you drew energy

from a touch so slight

if it were real you couldn't be sure

your skin became transparent

and light seeped into your whole body

up from the ferns you floated

and either you've been gone for awhile

or you were never here in the first place