we adapt, we mitigate.
beholding devastation,
in a moment of transcendent light,
we’ll call it beauty.
i am no exception.
the bearable light of being
Category: poetry
thaw
i add my most intentional breaths to the land, to the atmosphere,
for the birch sapling, for a man i knew,
both, bent over
frozen
in a forced deference
mimicking reverence
it won’t, can’t, hold
[it never does]
with every exhalation
my pink lungs
conjure warm winds
from red blood cells
incanting
under my tender palate
over my dormant tongue,
though my worn enamel
beyond my hermit lips:
human calculus
there is no math
more racking and wrenching than the equations of
human calculus
to find oneself
not as integer or integral
as both function and derivative
yet, not a real variable
as undifferentiated
only momentarily tangential
eternally infinitesimal
telemarketer
she answers every unknown call
thinking it might be him
on a burner phone
calling to say
calling to tell
calling to ask
calling to weep
calling to laugh
calling to breathe
you
yes
wait
soon
now
everything
anything
‘this’
we were not that singular, after all
in spite of all evidence and words
to the contrary
we began and ended
like everyone, everything, anything else
sure.
but
‘this’, i know
we never grew boring
we never stopped loving
we never stopped wanting
then
still
you vanished
so
what does ‘this’ all mean now
what does anything mean now
what can anything mean now
what is the meaning of meaning now
this, i do not know
Eyes Wide Shut
diving galaxies behind,
beyond my eyelids
into crevasse of mind
deep heart of universe
collapsing, revealing
origin
of black expanse
of eternal presence
sublime of aeons
reciprocal gaze
know me
who,
Am i
explanation
she was never really glad to be here
here, as in, born,
here,
or at all, anywhere
not really, no
still,
she paced herself
bided, abided the days which turned into decades
in the city
she moved out of the city
she moved out to the country
she paced her herself
bided, abided the days which turned into months and years
in the country
one more/
one more/
one more/
one more/
one more/
one more/
one more/
intruder
let them know she was killed
in a struggle with an intruder in the house
then let them know she was the intruder
then let them know she was the house
undo
i sometimes wake myself speaking to you aloud from my dreams
the Lake carries my voice
in one direction, west, at night;
if i’m being truthful,
in sunlight too
do you hear me in your sleep,
or when awake, in your perfect nest, your perfect, structural roost
no rest then, no rest now,
“be” or “do”,
and, “do” won out
transubstantiation
in my winter cocoon
enveloped in sheets and blankets
my eyes closed all day
these damned windows,
seams of daylight break
through fiber,
try and force their way through slits and lashes,
i resist
pink lids, i won’t study and map
your capillary streams / birds, please don’t sing / i refuse to perceive anything but my own inlands
i don’t feed
i don’t drink
i don’t think
i don’t move
i don’t feel
i only let
let
let
let
i am not dying though
i am working from the inside
autonomic, appearing halcyon
while transforming
all memoir of you – from idealization into unbiased slurry, and,
into something, new
into something, else
of me
a good melancholy
a phantom history
– an entire phantom life, not mere limb
one i didn’t know i had, to begin with,
let alone, lost /out on/
a door to a paralleling universe
and no wormhole key
the hours
in the days before their deaths
which could now practically and reasonably
be measured in hours,
she began liminal dreaming
even during daytime
and she saw a white horizon
containing a silhouette of golden-amber woods alit like filigree
and a golden-amber house, likewise
and she knew the house was for her
and she was not afraid
sunday
my feelings, brimming / about to spill onto the floor/ i’ve got no strength, bread or bucket / to sop or mop them anymore/
worth
i measure my worth
in deer so at ease they’ll eat kale from the garden, less than five meters from my door
by a home-cooked meal eaten together, still hot
in heritage Jimson weed blooms on summer nights
& harvested, unblemished squash on autumn afternoons
in bats sighted overhead at dusk from the stoop
in thriving houseplants, all named and watered
in clean sinks, sheets, floors and birdbaths
by pages read, no matter
by the number of rabbits who see me and then ignore my presence
in folks, walking exhausted, or in rain, who accept my offer, climb into my truck with their groceries or booze for a lift home
in miles walked with the dog, and in my stilled patience as he interprets the “news” thoroughly with his nose
in native prairie plants restored, by my hand, New England asters, sweetgrass, have mercy,
in minutes spent on the phone with my son,
my golden boy
“for all your fine washables”
the mundane,
it reminds
the limineen | earthling, poet & crone 