Libra and Venus
weighing the moon
some distance behind us now
yet in front
our words await
footless guests
and these faded freckles –
February's white garden
shape of pain
as angel wings sprouting
and god's impeccable grammar
bending me
in this sepia chapel –
home in solitude
with my mind wandering
like water or landscape
now only crows
take flight
letters –
now abandoned houses
all these ghosts between us
empty names
in a porcelain world –
silent skies suggesting
the last first kiss
isn’t free
dawn's white lakes
of retreating
snow –
love always woven
with flight
sounds of snowmelt
running through brimming eaves –
I nap on the floor of the sea
pines stargazing
everything just
out of reach
from unending
silence the world
begins
she
as the coming day
always new
untouched places
and absence keeping it all
safe
pines do not wait for it
and birds do not resist
migration for proof of love
no promises to keep –
it never left
or arrived
January light —
these muted fields
smooth like candle wax
a fox trots the perimeter
of seasons
heavy snow
bending pines
the wrong way –
space between us
grows
my past
still life asleep
in arsonist's hands
ashes of regret
like eagle's wings
against winter sky
Christmas Eve moon
alone behind branches and fog –
Magdalene on her way
gathas and guillotines —
We at war forget
love's immortality.
What is below the sea?
Find out, know, remember
how to write
love letters
higher this time
frozen moon turning
sand dunes to snow
ash and iron
over dawn and day –
dimness the envelope
of that which
saves
angels
at the feeder
our winter bell
December’s tone
softer
A turn in the road
cold stones
asleep in the fog
cardinal and chickadee –
rejecting seclusion
just another day
my tongue
over a broken
tooth
these quilts
over softening
bones
this morn of snow
the lake effect
of parting years
shadows of me
over blue moon
snow –
maybe I can love
Christmas again
