birthplace

relationship
between two shores
our impartial sea cradling
the center, singing songs
of a point beyond duality

this sacred mirror
of intimacy
behind the eyes
it is the One, as me
Now — Us — All

one

simple unity
our effort absurd
connected in the center
cardinals twitter
in the snow-covered bush

narcissus

prayers and poems
teeming in humble roots –
the God I didn't recognize
united behind
our gaze

here and there

geese sounding
in the distance
snow falling as ash
closer to home

holy mother

virgin snowfall –
everything divinely shared
as we go beyond
nobody

powers

4 a.m. fox
under a titan moon
orange monsters unfamiliar
with what they already
own

geese
shooting arrows
into rain –
we rise a little
above softened
earth

what we hold

late fall shaking
cardinals in the rhododendron
sun's ghost ship
sailing lower
my hands in the dirt
groping for shadows
finding seeds
instead

pray

dark night, disembodied
distance and unborn
ache –
knees bend softly now
my feet at the sea

carved

autumn owl
carved in a woody spine –
we fall further than birds
yet rise as smoke
on the ridge

death

lily hands soft
around winter's nape –
this grave preceding
time together spent
in dreams

blunted

birch logs –
goodbye letters
up in smoke
our dull axe hacking
winter's cusp

woodsmoke and frost
prophesying paleness
to come –
full time ghosts
in the heart of wind

moonlight never leaks
through trees of darkness
or clear panes of tired sills

it bores and pierces
nakedness and night-flowers
thirsty for eyes

above the city
and sizzling over
wrinkled lakes

you can't beg for it
but it begs for you:
open and drink

October
octopus arms
around me and reaching –
no more need for ink
or swimming

morning falls
asleep behind gray curtains
along side stars stuck
in another's
land

soft
bedsheet wrinkles
this lapping sea a foreplay
to faraway lands
of sleep

fading
night murmurs
giving way
to silence
body stiffening
in the cold
such certainty
replacing wishes
and warmth

bats
conducting our symphony
above crown shyness –
helpless beauty lifting woe
from lonely night

walking
this soft sickle moon
on my shoulder –
love making light
of it all