fallen

she the dispossessed,
having dropped from her green perch,
is the way of life.

a long walk alone
finds me mulling her new state
in a chancy world:

a fruit of some tree,
cloying as the grace of eve,
is among new friends.

everything falls here;
faith, love, hope, time, are all braced
for good of the Truth.

i am the apple,
the searching leaf, the pine bough,
the draining waters.

all is returning,
all is hearty abundance,
all is what it is.

Read More

red dust

i.

i love the pockets-full
of red dust
that you are:

a collector's
worth of archaeological
meteor-shower atoms.

that through my fingers
i might sift you
for a thousand years,

feeling the soft-soft
sigh of your breath
on my closed eyes.

ii.

you are of the uncommon
fires found in the
outest backs of the
wilderness of common men.

there, in the distance,
the shape of you is
bisected by the
cross-hairs of branches.

something to puzzle
toward, to be in
search of, to be too
far flung to catch.

that's a father's
prayer, of course; or a poet's,
whose pursuit is of the blood-stone
souls of far-flung words.

iii.

i'm tired of grace
and of words and
of the faith of men
and of time.

but i'm not tired
of you.

because one cannot tire
of watching the way
the moon commands the sea
from across the vastness of dark.

iv.

it is october, and things
have changed, but i
still go for walks and
talk to myself, mostly.

the maple is giving
up again; the ash and
the beech and the elm,
they're spending what they have.

it will be again soon
that i walk and can see
a better view of the moon
at night.

but it will be colder then,
and i will need to make haste
and go chasing my
breath toward the heat of home.

v.

when you look back,
be it toward something.

when you reach,
be it far beyond them at least.

when you take pride,
kiss it on the lips.

when you discover
joy, be it.

when you find that
place, remember how.

vi.

this man, full of
failed words,
and propped toward
pity more than he should,
loves you, pockets-full
of red dust that you are.

Read More

true

with this audience
of bent tree and leafy ground,
love's never dismissed

Read More

frost on the tire

something comes from nothing
and the morning sprites, how
they light upon life with the
aplomb of kings to their thrones.

a child's bike laid on its side,
and within morning's reaches,
recumbent and receiving
her blessings of life-loss.

something comes from something
and the child who left the
bike upon the grass is asleep,
dreaming of something blue or green.

i have left a lot upon
the table, and allowed it to
speak to me from its history
to the point of distraction.

i have seen left things and
have mourned the loss of them,
only to realize later that they
gave to me what they should.

i walked around the bike
to gain a higher perspective,
to change from the lower view,
and perhaps change myself from me,

but came back around to the
lower, to inspect the frost on
the tire, to marvel with opened eyes
at the spectacle of descent.

how the autumn augers in,
strips the colors, makes way
for the princes of winter
and the crawl of demise.

something comes from itself and
the child who let go of the bike will awake
wiser, and will be something of a mystery
in how she looks to these eyes.

frost on the tire
this early in the morning says
to this father, 'Be unto the world
less wicked to oneself.

'love the evolution of the
child and let go the emulsions
that separate you from you.'

frost on the tire
will scatter with the rising sun
the way crickets dance from
my feet when out for a walk,

and the child will gather up
her bicycle and ride it
for a time before snow flies
in from the west with

winter on its hurried heals,
and things will wait 'til spring,
things will wait,
and i will be older

and so will she
but better so, for me.

Read More