Desire in Deep Time

There was never a question

you and I would be lovers.

I knew in the way

of dream knowing that

breath had called to breath

while we slept, apart,

so when we met, your voice

spun deep eddies in my blood,

and your scent put me

in swaying grasses

on a broad savannah 

I have hunted 

many times and

walked at sunset

satisfied and
sweating.

directions (2)

what if the air

in your lungs

is God?

whom will you curse now?

How Riding Heely Shoes at the Park Can Break Your Heart

Two times in her life

Elle has been in a hospital.

Once to say hello to Lilyan,

a first edition baby girl niece,

ink still drying on page one, though

already, clearly, a love story—

then again yesterday to mourn

the passage of a wounded friend

who once rashly promised her

a piece of eternity.

Sitting on the blue bed,

her wrist still cradled by a

baggie of ice from home,

there was yet time to hope,

until the blue doctor arrived

with photographic evidence and

a bagful of big words,

three of which Elle understood.

“Yes, it’s broken.”

And she knew:
Invincibility was gone forever.

la musica de los muertos

on windy october nights

composers refrain from

blue green crescendos

they lay aside rising sound shapes

of water chasing itself to the sea,

or thousand part choirs

in sunny meadows.

on the dark side of equinox

flutes rest, and strings voice only

far wind on fence wire

now come the percussionists:

hungry bones clacking in treetops,

fingers tugging at heaven

for one more day

forgotten fields shush 

in thrashing wind

like sea waves 

returning to shore alone

to empty a widow’s heart 

of any hope in spring’s return

If it Were True

The preacher was a big man

with a big voice fierce as

West Texas wind.

Sanctuary walls gathered the sound

before it could escape between bricks

and sent it straight at me

the way a canyon

aims a flood.

I was seven,

still attentive to wonders

others assured me

did not exist—

oneness and belonging

no need for hope—

the lovely world

slowly cooling to black.

The message he boomed—

God wants in to your life,

open the door for heaven’s sake,

invite him in— 

will you leave the creator

in the cold, in the dark, 

exposed to the elements of your doubt,

poor thing?

It was a forceful plea

meant to tumble me senseless

and leave me like driftwood in sand

on the Island of Saved Souls—

a spiritual vacuum blissfully filled.

The message I heard—

What’s this? My life, apart?

An empty space walled away from light?

An alone place where God isn’t?

Terrifying.
Or would be if it were true.

lamplight runs naked

To the Zuni the whole world appears animate. Not only are night and day, wind, clouds, and trees possessed of personality, but even articles of human manufacture such as houses, pots, and clothing, are alive and sentient. All matter has its inseparable spiritual essence.

Ruth Benzel, anthropologist

sometimes the party

is just too loud

i try to get some

serious work done

but the desk knows a

new joke and

my chair won’t stop

with the farting sounds—

departing leaves dressed

in bright new sweaters

throw themselves like paper planes

against the window

pestering me for

one last romp—

lamplight runs naked

everywhere flashing everything

and no one has any respect

for the cold fact

that i am the one who keeps

the bills paid around here

another cookie

some will say

this poem is

too square

too dense

too crooked

like a tree

with no boards in it

too crimson

all anarchy and

immodest glances

too loose with foolish promises

too rough with raucous wings

too brittle to do the plowman any good

too sharp to leave with the children

too buoyant to take into church

too nice

too low

too you

some will always say a life is

too little or too much

some will always need another cookie

and a few minutes more at recess

Fire in Stone

            The ordinary man

sees only stone,

dense as new moon night,

lifeless,

immobile, except when

Earth becomes jealous of Sky

and clutches stones to herself,

away from bright hillsides,

and they crash through

bedroom walls.

Then kitchens fill

with people in black.

            The warrior

sees only fire,

solar storms,

high-noon heat,

unforgiveness, the

revolutionist’s manifesto

and the bloody cauldron

that cracks the earth’s crust

and drains the reservoirs

of mothertears

until kitchens burst

like black balloons.

            The shaman

sees fire in stone,

a simmering thought,

the ribbon tied between worlds,

the Great Is

standing still like

dancing natives

photographed in firelight,

creation and annihilation

tumbling together down hillsides

to flatten walls

and fill kitchens

with the immutable laughter of being.

directions

what if the cloth

on your skin

is God?

which way to Eden now?