pine needles
in the snow -
a place for everything

his honest mountain
forgets all about
whiskey in the jar - 

drink now the climb
and your summit

of the end 

the woods
my cross

to save
or crucify

the way to you
the way to You

2 a.m. stars
over a breathless lake - 

devotion
to the immediacy
of life

bare being - 

nothing
other than this

solves the problem
of whom 

I cannot
not be 

this, now this -
 

wind from the east
in virtuous lashing

thou shall not covet
spring

rain
instead of snow
pattering all night -

this change
I won't neglect

this knowing
I can't forget

now
only to love
for Love's sake

En Route

driving into it –
a sky's eager east

the question now:
do you believe
in my myth?

divinity
is the fall
into love

hearts
in dialogue
for creation's sake

spill and slipping
the impossibility of control -
and that is IT!

Love's refusal
to stop and ask
directions

Dawn's Temple

in the right light
eyes blind with reverence
I gather us all in

to that borderless country
of kneeling mountains
and raptured streams

to retired hope
and overflowing treasuries
of peace

our purest offerings
null and void
at last

Bird Words

so it is
I've spoken to myself
the whole time

and I answered
with great passion
the One who made Us

as a lover
too close to touch
I misunderstood . . .

now I speak as a bird
perfectly untranslatable
to those with ears for wings

Good Girl

under the lightest rain
and acorns falling
my coffee cools
faster than the sip
and the house exhales
stillness as I speak
in coos upon
the dog

good girl
you're such a good girl

Out of Time

I hold to time
out of time

our matrix rendered
incoherent

the high, wispy trills
of stolen speech

breaking it down
breaking me down

Our Way

my favorite place
the shared path -

no hero ahead
no injured behind

merely maples
and the harbored way

ever here
evermore

Haven

no more waiting
in the land of lighthouses -
I'd rather rest
in the cool caves
of now

August's Snare

dying flowers

summer kneels before
Perseus' shower

my chest

rises and falls
 against the cold

shirt buttons

Berth

following
Lake Michigan's seam
language echoes fall short

what is arbitrary
recedes in cycles
yet always returns

Still

remembering
how to fold
cranes

is not the same
as watching
herons

tip

toe

at

dawn

box turtle
between yellow lines -
summer moves beyond
the bend of our
mirage

Tending Home

the daisies bloomed
while I was away -
even untended
they are
who they are

Going

what we never owned
now in shadows
and wind

hello -
a fated bend
towards a thinner now