WINTER LIGHT
Three trees, the only landscape.
I couldn’t see past the surface
Of the water. There was a kind
Of sweet smell coming from my flesh.
The light was shattered by the afternoon.
It lay all criss-crossed on the floor,
Smashed into the door of my room and banked
Off the wrought iron bedstead.
Car skids around the corner, takes out
About three feet of fence, backs up, guns
The motor so hard it blows the muffler and
Disappears in a blast of taillights. Perhaps
It is the Winter light that makes the houses
Look so old and tired and hurt? They try
To fill themselves with the holidays, try to
Bend poor Jesus into “everything
Feeling so good.” Perhaps it is just that avenue
Of trees, near the water, pretending to be
The eternal now?
When I look close at the tears in the fabric,
They seem to have been bitten through. It
Seems as if the fabric is made of so many pairs of
Old denims, plaid shirts, socks, jackets and
Navy coats with rainbow cuffs, used to grab
Big hunks of music out of time and twist them
Around guitar strings. Sometimes it is a moment
Of wind, the space before the comma, the sound of one’s
Own footsteps reaching the ears. Look, over here,
Near the end of this creek, where it joins the lake,
The water seems to be making a shape, looks like
An angel. Its wings tricking against some twigs
Caught in the flood. They seem to move, then do.
UNABLE TO EXPLAIN
We sat on the edge of the blue
Inlet and listened for the question
To become complete. A slight
Drift of smoke carried the scent
Of the cities through our clothing,
Peeling layer after layer of feeling
From us as if it were the heart,
Caught in its room of ribs and breathing,
Unable to understand hands, the movements
Of high mountain goats among the pinnacles of forgetting.
Sounds poured forth from us,
Continents of them, ripe and with
A million yellow mouths, all wanting
Something other than words could
Give, caught in melody and stripped
Before our eyes of the darling vestments
So beloved by men everywhere;
Truth, Knowing, the Sublime, Instinct.
“All lost, lost,” the captain said, unable
To recognize the land any longer.
We have no maps for things like this.
We are forever thinking we know
What will happen. We are forever
Calling, searching for echoes, the voice of angels,
The smiles of children blessed with tenderness,
Founded in waking up to see the sun
Slipping between the window blinds,
Not a dream at all, rather a way of knowing.
We embrace them and weep endlessly.
We name ourselves rain forest.
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