The darkness of a cat sliding past me on its way
up the stairs as I descend can seem symbolic
of a missed opportunity or something passing by
I should have paid more attention to on my way
to put out the trash but in reality I still got the trash
put out and a cat passing by in the dark on the stairs
is never an opportunity even in this ankle deep silence
O star you should have known
not even your memory will eclipse you
No distance will establish a shadow
between this heart and yours
The light that comes back to me
from something larger—is it
not my own joy which without you
I would never know?
You sleep beneath a quilt of moonlight.
As I cut off the lamp across the room
and walk into darkness the heavenly
body brightens. There is just enough
room for me, pushing aside a dog
or two, to press against you, fall in
to the rhythm of your breathing,
our dreams mountains on the moon
Loblolly pines peel away from the paling sky
looking back on their roots.
Over one’s shoulder the full moon
eclipsed on the western horizon’s
almost an after-thought. As indirect
light rises from the ground below us men come,
constructing the canopy tent for the next
funeral. Ground fog further east glows
red and headlights are no longer
necessary to see where you’re going.
Underlit clouds reach across the new day’s ceiling
like a giant hand trying to trap something.
Or save someone. But I’m hidden beneath these trees
and houses. It goes on, drifts beyond, the wrong way.
A night too cold for crickets. The moon crested
the rocky crust of the east a full two hours
before sunset, a beacon over the reddening
mountain shaped clouds inhaling the last
of the sun. Eighty five point something percent
full, isn’t that enough for this to reach you?
In the rain on the street’s surface
each house shimmers its inner life
when my eyes water with memory
the homes break into ten thousand drops
Cloud Ocean lays over the valley as an unnamed sea
did before names, only the southern peaks
visible like islands in the distance. Clouds crash
into a coast of trees and in the slow motion violence of
white spray rising I sway unsteadily
on top of 400 million years of unmoving rock
So quiet except for fall crickets hanging on
In the rectangle of black behind the screen
I hear the soft pattering of rain and lean over the sill
and see two moths, brown like faded leaves
beating forgotten wings against a night full of stars
No traffic. A leaf clatters like a steed with an urgent message
then gives in to a burlesque swirl and stills itself out
of momentum. A yellow moth staggers on uneven air across the empty street.
I can walk down the middle of the road past lonely double-parked cars.
Not a soul is about. The churches are filled up with their giant doors shut
like a present I will not unwrap. The entire town is my empty prayer.
I can appreciate every curb’s lift, every curve of crumbling brick
arch on old buildings, window-shop for emptiness and find it
everywhere. Even the crow’s shadow barely skims the earth.
And a thousand yellow leaves do the moth better than the moth did.
Translations from the English 