the story of a boy and the fallen world

I am a boy again, in the backseat of the car after church, going home.

Sadly for others, window glass has nowhere near the power needed

to ward off the fallen world outside—corrupted by sin,

the Sunday school teacher said, done in once and for all by

a woman’s flesh and a man’s hungry eye.

The car picks up speed and radio words

tumble and bounce off the floorboards

at my feet like empty beer cans.

Past my reflection and through the blur,

I can see for myself—the world still stands upright,

good as it ever was, and is littered with talismans

tirelessly telling and retelling the first story,

the old, old one made of light:

snakeskins dangling from tree limbs;

dry creek beds and flash floods of mountain memory;

sparrow skulls like Easter eggs filled with leafy green shadow;

the wetness of new mice in hay fields, an avalanche of flesh and eye together;

the testimony of bullfrogs after rain: “We live! We live!”

sky rivers of ravens at sunset

fireflies, oh, the fireflies moving freely between worlds, weightless.

“Like this,” they say again and again. “See how easy!”

and a boy, the one talisman meant to gather the rest

in a cardboard cigar box with feathered corners

and a rubber band wrapped tight against accidental forgetfulness.

A keeper of faith.

For Jonathan at Eighteen...and For Miles at Twenty-nine

Soon you will leave.

I am not surprised. This leaving

Was spoken in your first breath,

Like dandelion parasols present

In the earliest outburst of spring.

The silent listener

In my body heard footsteps outside

Your door long ago, when your face

Had only just crossed the horizon

Of my life, full and shining.

I am supposed to feel sad,

I know. I am supposed to mourn this

Empty nest and throw gray silence

Around my shoulders like

An old woman’s shawl.

I have seen this done.

I am supposed to crest

In the air and then drift idly back to earth,

The way fireworks do when they’ve

Spent their treasure on one furious “No!”

Shouted into the night.

What will I say?

What can I say after so much

Routine brutality, after the many                                                                                                 Casual amputations required of a father?                                                           

What would you hear?

“I love you?” or “Forgive me?” or will

My voice forever contain the sound

Of a grindstone drawn across the

Flashing tongue of an ax?

My father’s name still splits wood.

In truth, I do not feel sad,

And I do not feel my life thinning

Like chimney smoke in North wind.

This empty nest is emptied entirely,

Of both you and me.

God sweeps us both through

Her kitchen door to make something

New of ourselves, if we can.

As we will.

For Anna

Born to water

you pour out

your life

cup by cup

breath by breath

in and out,

one rounded desire

for surrender,

for letting

what’s

old

make

you

new

again

Your coming

laid the

fourth direction

in place

in my life like

sacred stones

in the west

You came from

the pitcher that

welcomes

water

but

pours

out

wine

is a waffle a waffle if no one is there to eat it?

is a waffle a waffle if no one is there to eat it?

key ingredient: you, of course,

to want (it all begins with wanting)

to stir, slowly from the hips

to stand the heat, rising

to butter like the melting breath of a first time

to drown in amber love (the best part)

to share with me

to share with me

then is a waffle the center of existence

the source of all things

call and response in winter

late afternoon sun

colors the canyon rim

of a deer trail in snow,

their daily way

forward and back,

the way of life

reading the signs

to discern what follows

i find the floret

of fox’s paw stamped

in steady white rows

like

puffs

of

cartoon

smoke

from

the

stacks

of an

ocean

steamer

and walking and looking

i see this: half a mouse,

hind legs and tail,

resting

soft belly up

unmade

unfinished

the rest of her is a mystery again,

travelling a different trail home,

the one that picks up

where the creek

crosses the horizon

now in place of

whiskers and ears

and a tapping heart

there lie two dark almonds

of fox scat

precisely arranged

as if in accordance with the terms

of an ancient agreement, perhaps

a responsive liturgy

that begins:

this much i need,

this much remains…

and mouse in her turn replies:

this much i become,

no need for more.

Confessions of a Pickpocket

The phone brings news—

if you believe in news.

It is bad—if you believe in that.

This month’s rent is in danger, and

right on time the oily priests appear at my door

with painted faces and

a warrant to search the place for contraband—

any unprofitable squanderings,

any stolen time.

I let them in, what else can I do?

They’re right to charge that

I’m short a few coins,

that my record argues against

leniency, that I appear to believe

I’m special somehow,

but that, really, I will always be nothing

but an unlicensed distributor of magical thinking

and a corroder of consensus.

I remain silent, as always, and turn

to search through the cushions of my magical sofa,

which faithfully offers up enough—

almost as if all is well no matter what

the phone may say—but I keep that to myself

while they smugly count up their booty.

Poor things, far more slave than master,

they’ve never once caught on that I pick their pockets

every time they visit.

If I Had Written the Declaration of Independence

If I had written

the Declaration of Independence

no one would have gathered

to solemnly sign it.

No parents would pack sack lunches

hundreds of years later

so that yellow busloads of children

could press their complacent noses

against the glass put there to shield

The Document from complacent noses.

No scholar would expound,

no Dear Leader betray,

nor any patriots rally to defend

a single word of mine.

No blame to them, I just

wouldn't get it right.

Politics? Governance? Something about

“un-aliens” and chasing happiness…?

Where was I?

Oh yes—If I had written

the Declaration of Independence

it would have spawned

a fearsome empire

of hermit poets,

or more accurately,

The Empire of The Poet.

One poet,

one window,

one pencil hovering,

one cup of coffee, neglected

while I survey the realm—

Free.

the moon on my tongue

think how many poems

are born under the moon

how many poets

have failed to resist

the cadence of

liquid light falling

to earth,

whispering soft

sunlight into soil,

then flowing

out again

from spaces

between things

in artesian wells

of magic

tonight I surrender too

and place the bursting

moon on my tongue,

perfect sacramental bread

in a lifetime
of worship