morning time

waning crescent
early sun
cold
pear shows new growth but no bud swell
that's the clock to watch

in Greece
an Antikythera device
salvaged from the sea floor
predicted eclipse
the moon
that's the clock to watch

children  play
listen
filtered through the closed window
laughter
looking out
follow across the blue sky
their voices
keeping
perfect
present
tick
tock
tick
tick
tick.....

pyre

To raze the dead
an architecture
of renewal

first metal
a grate conversing with ground, fire, air
slab tiers of wood
windward
then alternate
different species
stabilize
degrees of heat, time
the small kindling embedded
within the heart
symmetrical
(love, relief)
stable
(remembrance, community)
lifting
lacing oxygen throughout
wrap a white shroud
round the body
place centered, on top
and gently let go
light the base
and wait
for ash and bones
(some will not burn)
sing
read a book
weep
pray
admire the symmetry
the grace
of  precious collapse
trunk
trunks
arms
branches
even the buildings of death
used up
given back

difficulty

It's out there
spoken
done
part of

Resistance.

Why?

For what reason?

Absolutely one.

You.

c sea suite

T3b
A husband
is a village
out of
iodine.
Within
him
a  liquid radius
that increasing
contracting
fakes ephemeral
but in truth
replays
disaster
deep within the pelvis.
So much for fickle pixilation.
You almost forgive
the deceit
but not quite.

N0
Negative.
Negative.
Road closed.
An unamplified swelling
is provocative.
This confluence
of the natural
the unharmed
even healthy
with the destructive T3b
isn't reassuring.

M1
Here's the kicker, the sucker punch.
There are after all other routes
detours
backroads of bone,
hidden estuaries,
vacancies,
suites
with views of

tidal activity,

waiting to clobber you.

a stitch in time - for margaret wertheim

crochet coral
prove new geometry
through wool and pull
infinite lines
stretching
dead to living
color
fingers
dipping curve to
crimp
to
crenate
edge
variation
clustered
filters
the
feminine
enters
invention
saves
scale
saves
saves
by application
and diligence

black

5 black water paintings yesterday
this morning
13 books from the library
black poetry
black algebra
black mysteries, questions
black work
today more black
which is primary to
painters, ancient Greeks,
linguists and
grass writing
painting
old old old
black is more a middle kingdom
like China or Doggerland
than an end

this break for
black coffee
seems to subside, calm me
being present in brilliant sun does this
places black
in black paintings in now
things to return to
and leaves black thoughts
conversing at the kitchen table

intimist

There is

nothing between

you

and the

pupate green garden,

the compost mountain,

the dead squirrel’s furry copse, 

soughing in the pear hollow.

Nothing. 

Remember?

Emptiness

is a sun.

I’m so thankful

I keep forgetting

where the light comes from,

and discover it

all over again.

and again,

and again.

numbers

Colors
may
represent
numerical qualities.
34,000 approximations!
Yet an infinite series of signs,
somnambular equations,
resonate as
words, sounds, expectations.

Time is change.
Distance is motion.

Still,
still,
seamlessly lit,

under a huge moon,
there is in a Hanoverian garden
a solitary samara upon the pond.

Sylphic opalescence?
Celestial abundance?
Floral possibilities.
Recumbent calculations.

Portage
Leibniz.

A small Dutch landschap
affirms interior intimacy,
is as clearly expansive
a poetry of humane dimension
as Baroque mathematics.

spill

pool

canoe

Flut

flower eater

rain

you can turn away from rain
but it still exists
the downpour that slowly suffocates
a rabbit stuck in the chainlink fence
is the
same that saves the lives of lettuces

rain
an inundation
that drowns a family one by one
feeds
corn and salmon

why insist on impossible separation
of the heart
which can be described
as
a land with no horizon
but perhaps
you are looking up
into the falling water

purl

knit grit into
life
spring
dirt
souls
soil
if earth forgives
why not
you

change of usage

we are marginal creatures
vulnerable
bay becomes laguna morta
silted
fishing for
becomes
finding the
village

at  Rieck's Lake in Wisconsin
between Alma and Iowa
swans become burr weed
burr weed wanes, arrowhead tubers
stretch lovely necks skyward

usage neither interchangeable nor static

here a cist a barrow a grassy mound
in stones trees
but in trees
an incursion of owls
hunting by day
listening
listening

fig tree

winter buried here
in a long trench
crown north
facing west
root  horizontal
buried like a lotus
under cold
asleep
inside the earth
smiling at the unknown

deluge

water
always the same water
we are surplus of ocean
spilled earth
vapor
spume
done
and over again
water
we
owe
you
everything

follow the water

wish

prune trees
paint
clear mind
clear heart
sun
walk
strong coffee

painting

quiet
breathe
lens clear
move
stop
move look
look

yellow

cranes
bulldozer
water tank
sign (what does it say?)

slow slow
oh

it's middle ground that shocked
into  firmer focus
the white cropped
the grey crossing grey squared

there

flash alarm inside vacant trailer window
a child-size shed  house-shaped, stranded in a lot
a yellow sign (What does it say?)
a water tank

cranes
three of them
a bulldozer
too wet for work


yellow
silent
fixed
an arm's length
a city block
30 degrees colder

as focus
yellow
as closed
yellow
as open

(what does it say?)

white

blears
muffles
wets
blotches

above
out

as ash
on ash
wednesday

red

so little in late winter
crepuscular?
seldom

midday in dirty snow
dogwood
rose canes
finch head

blue

day
 day to
year
 years
of this
look

eyes change
a baby's aquamarine
to algal jade
to silted speckled amber

maturity
earthern sight
chanelling
open oceans
of innocence


channeled


eyes see change
the autumnal seas
the vernal seas
is blue for brahmins or untouchables?


Look east
Michigan turquoise
wine dark Skaggerak
Han, Cheonggyecheon
stems of light
upon umbered

blue
is
the temperature of breath

first and final humidity
inevitable recurrent dispersal of light

day

 day to

year

 years

of this

look

grey

Two nights ago I dreamt

of a warm place with a warm smell

an unwalled building lost in 

translucent cloud veils of curtain.

Women in grey saris gathered under grey stones.

Granite Buddha

granite Ganesha

Vairocana

Vinãyaka

avatar

avatar.

The ash dry air was the color of a pigeon's wing.

Unsettling, vague expectations

surrounded us.

500 greys engulfed us.

From somewhere outside I heard 

the breathing of horses, the restless stomping of hooves.

I turned from the statues as a flash of tusky white swept

past me, redolent of green cedar, spring earth, rain.

Something vast, too quick for the eye, shook everything,

charged it with 

silver, 

platinum, 

white gold.

ice

what is god
in the glacial calving
where is god
in the Northwest Passage
how is god
in Greenland winter wheat
and Norwegian peaches
when is god
no one
how is god
rising in rising seas
where is where is

open mind

How
easy to be dismissive
cursory
stubbornly sure
that something is fishy.

Dissent welcomes mediation.

But what about true divergence?

How appallingly neccessary to love the other
!

maitreya

I think of you
in the eyes of old photos and men
something left unsaid
youth
behind us
but
everything still possible