Category Archives: The Inconsolable Range

The owl’s eyes

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The owl’s wings bat off the morning mist
As they lift. The owl’s juvenile horns are rolling

Waves of sea foam that push the scalloped sounds
Of night into form and sense. The light gold talons,

Both soft and sharp, wrap around a branch of air.
Missing the mouse of morning. Meanwhile,

And I mean in every sense of mean,
The owl’s eyes are traveling, out beyond

Its youthful death, in the company of ants;
In all directions death can take the owl’s 

Eyes go, unseeing pieces of marvelous flights
We could never take, unmoving beneath the green

Knives of the peonies, past their own spring flowering.
Two ants crisscross my glove as I place the owl 

Back on the earth. Now I know where vision goes
And why it’s first to go and feed what cannot see.

A poem will outlive this

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When I read Mei Yao-ch’en writing
In 1058 about his wife and son making

Roundcakes as protection against the eclipse
Banging on mirrors in the middle of a dynasty 

that created gunpowder and flamethrowers landmines
And grenades also paper money

I know that a poem will outlive this moment

Even if it’s about the moon which has never

Not shown up I may want to think there are
More important things to think about, I may 

Investigate and report and write and lose
Sleep waking worried on this same world my 

Children must inherit but where else will I 
Safely hurl this palmful of shadow

Being alive, being dead

6 Replies

1.

When the world is asleep except for me
And the sky an untouched coloring book page

And the coming days
Words too small to read

And the wind gusts are songs I forget
I’ve sung to you but your dreams 

Remind me, like branches by a window, then
In the bed of my soul two bodies stir.

When the world is asleep except for me
Peace and terror trade their limbs and fiercely wait

2.

Being dead, I’m a book no one has read.
My name neither stone nor bread.

What I remember cannot be changed.
Though a wreath of angels

Dance in circles round my head they ought
To know better. The past is taut,

The future loose and harrowing as a hive
Cracked open, that’s being alive.