on high

late afternoon
a crow-eye light –
up through the pines
clouds as a great church
peer down

after the storm

wisps of snow
with likeness to wings
bury with blankets
from heaven

who digs the graves
on days like this
whose faith turns
to stone

tilt your shoulder
to frozen seas
lift your chin
to what remains alive

faith need not die
nor trust, nor hope
and we need not pillage
the past for present

ransacked nests
will fill anew
violets and lilies
will not forget to grow

keep vigil east
towards God's Gate
and tend the light
we shared

redeem

blue bunting
and winter's gray
songs of redemption –
ask the lover
to linger

rise

shallow scars
across snowless
fields –

I’ve slept
beyond dawn’s
decay

naked

trees stripped
leaf by leaf
these wild winds
crusading against marrow
and heart

alive

3 a.m. owl –
did you hear?
our meeting place
this green region
of the heart

Chickadee

Chickadee –
it is not your beauty
but my awareness of you

in mapless territory
resist the gilding
of what comes and goes

Chickadee –
this cheery bounce
of abundance

thoughtless tomorrow
we are different
day by day

Chickadee –
open-throat Author
let me feed you

endless facets
of coming up
empty

Dreamspeak

sleeping
in sunlight

manifold silence
as fingerprints
on our soul

Dream says:
become rooted
to return to water –

how we swallow
each other

nested sun

light lining
winter's nave –
marriage as myth
yet the sacrament shifts
altar-bent

what if

melting snow
from eaves to fill
winter's chalice –
finally we swallow
kingdoms of wishes

truth

salted roads
and verbal winds –
winter's tongue
an honest mouth
eating at last

lack

my syllabus
of winter's apple flesh
and fresh dill –
what is here
and not

to worship

cantaloupe lip
through winter pine –
dawn's affair
heating the entirety
of praise

the work

cold mornings
making the soul
visible –
we forge angels
of fire

lovers

afternoon passes
quick as a fox
into night's tent
of negotiation –
our sweat
cools

listen

asleep
with tulips and bears –
sacred language
divining all things
silent

mama dark

thundersnow –
winter's mullah
forming footprints
in the maternal
dark

almost home

remanded moon
bending away
from home –
light
brushing the fur
of pines

blue love

deeper affection
in first snows –
even bluejays
are pretty
subdued

chase

last geese
trying to catch
the moon –
November eliding
the past