Moonprint
With a moon not yet full behind a sky not yet clear
a glowing handprint floats over the house
holds emptiness like a drifting welcome
closed to nothing always open to you
Moonprint
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Tag Archives: unregulated verse
The Stones
The Stones
Winter begins in the stones. In a dream the sky house
gets closer as if it is trying to hear a secret or tell me one
but when I can read its lips I see it is just pretending.
In the car: stones from a trip to the beach.
A thousand miles from where we found them
for months they have rested in a drink holder
with no discernible nature acting on them,
no car tides or car gulls have hampered their stillness.
Now when we pick them up on a drive we marvel
at how cold they are on this mild first day of November.
You can press them to your hand, your neck, your cheek
and they stay cold. They are telling me a secret
without moving their lips or pretending to tell me anything.
They are coming closer without moving, like snow clouds.
Wind Intervals
Wind Intervals
In a space under trees I can hear the wind that is not here
like a can kicked across the street by a boy still coming
or as if the act of the boy shaping his mouth to shout
made a sound before the sound of the shout
What is the word that I hear before the trees
above me shake and give the wind a momentary word
What is the sound of a loosening of leaves
like forgetting hands just before they drop
to our sides? The interval of apprehension.
The time we are alive. The boy stepping up the curb.
The Sound
The Sound
Today the sound of rain is over my head, in the leaves.
For a month it will get more and more silent
As the canopy thins, even as each drop more directly
hits its mark it will be more and more like a whisper
of something going away, until the level of leaf is ground
and then in the first cold rain a new sound like a cough
rattling to life instead of death, louder and colder will
arise from the earth, for a few times anyway reminding
us that nothing not even death stops talking until the
first snowflake tells it utterly and quietly to shut up.
Psalm
Psalm
So where is the past? Is it the terrain
in periphery, never the destination
but whose contours shape the weather?
Is it the icy light the moon reflects
on the tracks of things before me?
Wonderful deeds have we done, and
fearful things. They lay across the path
of parting like roots or over-hang
my steps with shade and snakes.
I do not wish to look
back. I only need to know
from which direction will come
the monster-god it has nurtured
to replace me so that I may stand
before him in the breach to turn away
his wrath, convince this pale reflection
that it could be a kinder god
Lines Written After Encountering a Cat in My House, #1
Lines Written After Encountering a Cat in My House, #1
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
Early Morning Sky
Early Morning Sky
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.
Reflections, Early October Rain
Reflections, Early October Rain
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
At the Overlook on Afton Mountain, Last Morning of September
At the Overlook on Afton Mountain, Last Morning of September
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
Outside My Window, Last Night of September
Outside My Window, Last Night of September
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
Translations from the English 