I-

It is not as if the intellect
were confined
like a planet to its ellipses
around the sun
or that it is caged
like a preternatural animal
in steel bars and glass— 
the intellect escapes, expands
like the universe itself 
and occupies the darkened spaces
of every ignorance

-II-

In flesh
and bone
in stone
and fire  
in the air
and sea
in leaves
of grass
in every cell
and molecule
the intellect
has no bounds
but of itself.

​
​

​The newest angel
newer than the sky
still newer than the world he sees
before his eyes
bewildered and confused
as if a child
expecting magic in the air
but sees instead
the mushroom cloud of history
that man hath wrought— 
“What good to be an angel
in a world like this,” he asks,
“without the image of my God?”

​
​
Death and Fire

The face in the flame
Contorted, misshapen,
unrecognizable
to anyone but myself
Is mine.

The death I see
Is mine
with neither agony
nor contempt
but only the release
from judgment and pain
that comes from fire.

It is the fire 
that consumes the air
of my being
and avenges the anguish
of my life.


​

The new moon sings 
of itself
to itself
in the darkest orbits
of its inner eye
where none can see
it dance
In silhouette
against the sky
or hear it sing
of a love so deep
inside itself
it is itself
its light cannot escape
the darkness of its face.


​

In every flower a creation myth.
in the runes and hieroglyphs
of its flesh a story told
and repeated untold times;
in every cell and molecule
of every leaf and stem
a universe awaits
the miraculous greening
and the glory
of the morning
as if it were a goddess
risen from the sea.