STARING BACK

 It was a scoured day: 

Windfall, crisp 

  with a polarized glare 

 to the sunset.

The scoop of blue radiated

  around the horizon  bleeding

 from indigo 

into orange-black

 as the stars 

winked open

   one by 

  one

TO THE FALLEN, WE SING

 

   for Greg... 

 Of thread, cordage and umber

our patchwork armor is grown and shed

 Woven from strands long gone under

cross bonded with others locked arm in hand

 Who must yearn to remember 

the old adventures in which they bled

 Walking through darkness in thunder

also haunted by brothers lost to the land

 This conflict, universal

conscripted or drafted in the end

 Either to serve or to plunder

the long ago promise of a reprimand

 A soldier's song will be sung

and always remembered by a friend

 When it has torn you asunder

captured in the drum beat of a marching band...

STARS

for Brian Eno 

Like waves crashing on a beach
faces sinking into the murk
amid shafts of sunlight below
thriving green stagnant ponds


phantoms of angler fish merging
into fading profiles of Maya kings
legion drown into the scintillating murk
overseen by the eye of a cephalopod


or is that a spider exactly the wind
hisses over diamantine droplets
you're just conjuring a host of names
the human heart a polished mineral


making contact along the circuit
breakers sinking like a rosary
dropped from the deck of the Titanic
the demonic wreaths of coral gardens await


O, green whale, eagle of the depths
spilling incense taking turbulent shapes
of faces mirrored along the crown of eyes
shredding into angels of birds


the Ancient of Days reflected in stellar parallax
within a quadrant of time reaching out
for the heart of a burial into rebirth staring
back from the well fed wide open hole

LESSONS FROM CATS

 First we must allow trust

   to develop.

It requires a certain amount

   of courage,

not to mention a degree

   of patience. 

All the rest has to do

   with tenderness.

Meet halfway with trust

   and a kiss.

We may suffer

   overreacting 

Having been conditioned

   by violence

to never comprehend

   what is amiss,

or we may take a lesson

   from cats.

Observe their silence

   and curious tactics

Serving to impress

   their legend upon us

and be sure to practice

   them with each other

so we may depend

   on our legacy

sailing the seas

   of companionship.

DREAM FOR US

When a tree falls in the forest

is it mourned by its standing survivors

the vibrations it made indistinct 

as the memory of a thunderclap?

Does the question become 

not whether a tree makes a sound

if it falls without anyone around

to hear it, but rather, is there even such

a thing as the ground when that appears

to be gathered from our perception?

Not even the forest suspects this much

least of all the trees, each one of whom, 

for instance, may believe they are the king 

of all existence. In whose dream, then

may a leaf be heard to fall, again?

Listen up.  Without you

there can be no story.  

A very old tree totters over 

into the wildwood far away

with a sound approaching 

the memorial of thunder

to its standing survivors.


Around the edge of the bay

outspread in their foothold

through funereal compost

melding with rotten mold 

a blue unreal mossy fungus 

spreads out and grabs hold.


Under the loam of bedrock

another microtone gets added

to the layers in the chorus 

of their growing forest song.