sitting
with a red
rake - 

collecting
the grammar

of me 

Our Wedding Dance

red bird at my feet
and an unanswered call - 
a one-word song

burying winter's bird
behind the shed - 
I empty my hands of love

sea-shaped envelope - 
I put myself away

For Beloved's Sake

solitary
in many fields 

I hold the hem
of wild knowing

folding corner
to corner

for Beloved's sake 

How Beautiful

resting
at the confluence
of love and nothingness - 
how beautiful
the space
in you 

under dawn's thin climb
I ache in the white-sleeved arms
of pines and prisms

my elegy plays
through wintered glass

please return

a distillery
of light

and handwritten
thoughts

you already
knew - 

Sunday 

deep night - 
what choice is there? 

I face the moon
and smile

always this 

butternut moon
and low light along the way - 
the backroads mean more

Deicing

tossing pebbles
across honeycomb ice - 

I am
no thing

and it begins
to sink in

Moonlighting

a little moonlight
on the pew - 
I sit long enough
to know the destiny
of blue

moving houseplants
into migrant light - 

you know . . . 
the world would be saved
if we could just feed each other

strawberry scars -
light plays with red
yet always reveals love

my fingers are in love
with card catalogues - 

this
and other beautiful collections
of irrelevance

winter's white hands - 
a scrawling mute
for hire

More Than a Graze

serrated stride -

winter cutting
all the wrong places

blood pooling
cooling

hands tied
knees cracked 

-- 

yet whispers of dawn
keeping course

feathers
beneath trees

tracks
going somewhere

love on the run

-- 

how the season
plays out in currents

moving water
ice / veins / snow / mud /earth

and finally gone

-- 

fertile soil
left to give
love

I am
where I began - 
snow falling gray

A Melt

the season
drips and pools
over sleeping meadows
and I make peace
with nothing

to escape cliffs
and cold monasteries
I go to bed old and tired