doxologies

In November, have you ever seen
a field like this, green
still in its greenest summer
Sunday green
cowdotted (and between
the fourlegs sometimes four legs
more, twigthin and thirsty four,
or dancing twos and fours)
While all around the trees
clap paper leaves,
rustle their Sunday skirts
those saucy girls! they flirt
they flaunt, they sing
newmaidenly -- sing
Eden songs
A breeze snaps
sweet and sassy
at the skirts about their feet
It might be spring --
Sunwarmed, center-chilly
let us, too, leap and sing
such saucy frolicking
such sure doxologies

manifesto

(this is not the poem i wanted to write.
I wanted to write --
in beauty, like the night. To write such stars, such blue, such blue, such black -- vangogh swirls against the dying of the light. Such violin-thin wails to pierce your heart -- I wanted
you to read, and ache, and love

me -- Love
me, 
Love 
me --

Love me in stars pinned up against the night, me crucified

instead i find myself writing the same poem again, over and over,
as i might turn a pebble in my palm -- i murmur:

Terrible --
this world,
and beautiful --

and there are SOULS

--these little vast and heavy things:
they will, when you have forgotten that i writing, still
be,
their own small deep and lovely being)

"For My Mother" (2006)

As i scrawled in the Black Book: "She gives me so much. I write her bad poetry."

~
FOR MY MOTHER.

If the world were a different place --
If I could have any thing -- I know
I'd want the wide sea in a silver bowl.
I'd want the moon on a golden chain,
And a glass of the scent of the grass when it rains.
I'd want a bowl of my mother's milk,
And a bottle of her tears --
I'd feed my mother apples and pears.
If the world were a different place,
I'd give my mother bread and wine.
I'd be a little vine
That twined around her waist
And bloomed in all the colors she loves best.
Oh, I'd have a bowl of my mother's milk,
And a bottle of her tears --
I'd want to soothe her skin with silk
And wash away her fears.
If the world were a different place
I'd reach into the deeps of space
And gather seven shining stars
And set them in my mother's hair --
I'd give my mother a crown of stars.
I'd give her a pearl for every year,
And a  rose for every day,
A yellow rose for every day
And a red rose on Sunday.

cat (bouts-rime ii)

cold nose curious whiskers     cat
discreet, white-mittened
steps precise as poured tea
sits proud     stares over grades
(its own estate complete)     late
sleeper, long napper    cold
eyes sliteyed peruse the noon
then s  t  r  e  t  c  h spine spunout glass
nose windowpresses     trees
outside whisper green green
whisper brown
cat
jungleeyed
pours
d
o
w
n

Bouts-Rime I

A branch longfallen, rotting quietly
Serene among its fellows, by the creek --
Beneath, inscrutable and dry, a toad
Glares lidless. Somewhere a saucy finch
Details to the wide creekside society
His exploits of the day -- A fit of pique
(finches, you know, are flighty), and the load
Of his tune ends. A twitter and a pinch
And the wide sky is his road. His glide swells wider
Than all his boasts and chirps. He hops and skips
From wind to wind, a mirror to the water-striders.

Child

Oh Child
Your eyes, so tender-wide
(I am not the first to draw this spiderline)

soft skin and tender petals
faintly fuzzed--
From Eve we have loved so, our similes
cut canyons --

Still

the sweet hungry curve
your smallbird neck
stretched so fracturable-strong --

Your mouth, your twotooth smile
confidently sweet
as a wide, bright summer sky --
you bite

two teeth and gums
Into this life
Into this crisp and sweet --

Your little clouds blown past
You have not reached
the grainy, mealy bruise
the hard and bitter seeds --

Your birdmouth opens
hungry, wide
to bite this world
so new, so crisp, so sweet

long distance (2005ish)

One foot, and then the other -- God!
I'm no good at this,
no long dist-
ance runner.

It hurts so much to fall --
Stumble on sin
again, and again
taste dust.

If I could see the end -- but it's
the middle of the day,
and a long, long way
until the end.