​Only the Few


Only the few mysteries
I am drawn to. The few
which take my breath away.

The way the morning light
lays on the world; the way
the wind comes on, and leaves;

the way darkness carves out
the evening. The places
a good woman takes you.

Somewhere silence. Somewhere
the call of the red-tail.
Somewhere the house closing

up for the night. Somewhere
the stars, oh, God, the stars.





A Bird


out a corner of the eye,
lost, then, in leaves and sky.

Every day we are blessed
with miracles. We walk on.

A loveliness we can't speak
and we walk on. Bird. Sky.

The world's broken beauty.
Pray for us now, that our

blindness be lifted, that
this moment's stillness is

no metaphor for death.





A Greater Darkness


In his shed, where
     silence
minds its business,

the poet pokes his
     words.
Something flutters

in the dying light.
     Shadows
move the curtains.

Wind in the trees
     outside,
the spell is broken.

Evening comes
     again.
Another night.

A greater darkness.
     Another
poet is lost to us.





Feeling Old


Evening. The weight
of this mortality.

I wonder: is there
somewhere I might

shelter? Wind moves
the trees. The trees

brush at the stars,
which might be dead

already and we
just don't know it.





The Dead Leave Us


The dead leave us
their shadows.

No sense turning
on the light.

The empty room
stays empty.

What's gone is gone
and won't be back.

There's nothing
they want from us.

There's nothing
we have to give.