John Virtue

thank you
for black shellac
and white
the trees and sea
the teetering between
the intensity throughout
weighty
as encumbered sky
skein mist, birch clear
spume spray
spreading
deep water
tides toward
(thinking)
n o r t h

blivet

3
visual microphones
which round
sounds?

the light thief

white meadows grey
lowering rain
unseasonably warm
close
covered day

c h r i s t m a s

"that is why they call it the present"

christmas

by choice alone

give you buddha candlelight and wine
give you 108 prostrations
a year of rosaries
give my tears
my clouded mind
(clearly seen through by you)

give you my everything
and an end to my everything

close to the bone
stone

everyday a victory


to live
within

even rock
a frail shell

Paula goes with grandma to the opera

Lucia di Lammermoor

via the Greyhound

and, in front of you, a black women's hair, pomaded.

The smell and shine!
Grandma told you bear grease and you believed it.

It was used, true,
but you loved the magic of it -
a woman with bear in her hair.

This on the way to hear
a mad woman sing.

Afterwards, at dinner,
another revelation.
Scallops weren't scalloped,
but soft cubes of white meat.

holiday party

made it through
without you

still
boundaries
soluable
this is painful

I found
tolerable
voices

men and women


one silent
one?



what eyes you have

becoming one done slowly

vikings in spain

ginger Galicians
mounds
seamen's
settlements

what we uncover next

m e l p o m e n e

your name
rises
as I do this day
an inflection
a stress
thought four words -
you now among gods -
while I, bootless
remember Aeschylus
leaving Philoctetes behind

painting the water mind

walking the water mind

mourning the water mind

sleeping the water mind

stilling the water mind

flowing the water mind

keeping the water mind

losing the water mind

observing the water mind

28

dhamma says
shedding carelessness
clear sighted
you rise and see sorrow for what it is

so work and thought become a bow and habit
like oatmeal and blueberries for breakfast
(native to north grain and fruit)
I who thrive in cold
still stranded as the tide returns
strange to watch the thaw
that death makes inside
as you with practice
repeat
the process of taking in and letting go

y o u

first one month
then ten
growing into
absence

today for christmas I received
a photo of you
reading, your passion
healthy, your hope

hit me so hard
I had to sit down
couldn't breathe

I called the friend who sent it

please
I love you

don't send
any more
of him


now

r o u t i n e

slept
wept
bowed

ate late
prepared mind

emptied body
began
my
day

s a i d

this
is what
seen
is

k i n w a s h i

i c e 

stop looking

start seeing

panic
reminds

doesn't remain

pragmatism

ends and edges exist

pomegranate

living an edge
as eating
the last of


living
while
eating
lasts


it's not fair those seeds lied she said

"Letting go of our attachments is something we should practice mindfully in our daily lives.
Otherwise we cannot maintain a calm and clear mind at the last moment of our lives....
When a tree is cut and falls, it comes down on the heavier side, the side with many branches.
Since the departed spirit usually follows its attachment, the practice of non attachment is very important when one is dying...."

- DoSung Yoo  A Practical Guide to the Heart Sutra, 132,133

grief

rain from a cloudless sky

filling

draining

(re) visited

sleepless

charging sorrow
hits hard
you fall

calling out his name
in a singsong
childhood beckon
he wouldn't
recall

not now
no never

sleepless
yes
still shared
wherever
is is to him

it's all
(re) visited

images

new painting on a day drenched in water

seeing them in dawn where they woke me up with a start

why not

they are ready to work with me now

see your mind

b o w (bow)

"Elusive and unreliable as it is, the wise man straightens out his restless, agitated mind,
like a fletcher crafting an arrow." - Dhammapada 3.33


I hear moktak
in the train warning
or reversing truck

wake up, wake up

your blue hands hold the

bow
the bowing wood
the bent finger triggered
by 108 flexes
that fletch
before
straightening
the mind 

r i v e (r)

first remembered words
roundness worn
as bead recitations


doesn't mean
words
(bead things)
better
or wiser

d e l e t e

mahjong mind isn't fooled

this could infinitely crooked the line

t e m p l e    k o i

mahjong

rule reversal
hours of it
building backwards
down to nothing

wall

Daruma
teach me endlessly
turn to the wall
don't speak

Daruma
never stop singing

housebroken

senses come to peace

disciple myself
work on wooden mind
sweep clean
everyday.

- 6.80 dhammapada

i had a dream i was bleeding again
you wrapped your arms around me
said
"let it go"

thought
arms, yes
i see
you want to be near me
not
let
go

so
understood
the blood and tides leave without us
we're
still
together.

Butsudan salon,
Kamidana kitchen,
Inari shrine,

all swept clean,


worn but loved,
still here, old and strong as,

walking after onzen,
the clan elderly.

An old man pushes family trash
in a wheelbarrow,
the debris of generations.

Weedless garden plots assure
stooping stays in the slim old bone.

Graceful age
in this tidy place.

Yet just outside

monsters of chaos.

episode

lost!

bicycle tire
small fox shiba
(satsuma sweet)

chocolate!

two languages
three continents
one quality -

k i n d n e s s.

kitsune

broken tailed!
All night
I heard the breaking of white porcelain.

This morning,
I walked to the beach and swept clean the shrine path.

the storm rose up after midnight
an eye of quiet at ten
then

storm again in dream

my wrong behavior
using water in someone else's house
a shower
refusing to accept
anger
to fully apologise
this queasy whine of guilt
this uneasy lie to oneself


don't appropriate what is not yours
even if you have need of it 

scattered rice hulls
on fresh earth row
last heat
first
blood
moon

w i n g

What comes into this house alive

and green

"turtle-winged "  
soft as hazy stars?

- On the Morning of Christ's Nativity Compos'd 1629, verse III, John Milton
                                            (typhoon forecast)

w i n g

w i n g s

名残 (relic)

cleaning someone’s house

closets full of things

a restaurant of dishes

a nursery of linens

some anomalies -

lids without pots

what does one's welfare consist of?

full moon

before six the sun
after six the moon

one
rounded

message

kogane-gumo

you in my bag
you in my heart

monk's wife
worries

a sweet chestnut cake

garden

dig up
sweet potatoes
to cure before eating

transplant lobelia

move indoors
citronella geranium
munstead lavender in bloom
room for jasmine?

the white geraniums have a few weeks
do I dry or let die?

before I leave a tree will come down

when I return a plum pollarded

an end

4
minus
two
divided
one

one

none escape

given photos of you today

thoughts stilled

heart  filled

still

didn't cry til I

got home.

an episode in humanity

can be found

in

30 names for water

p e n s i v e

fragments of
extinction -

languages

are

limits of
less than

fresh water
fire

or

the slow salt of the earth

waning gibbous (smear)

m   o   o   n

autumn

third

grief

last thing never lasting

w a l l

thought i saw

didn't 

1 9 4 2

Rouault and Kandinsky left Paris
found
around
the edges of this city
walls
charged with
the poverty of ideas


Nantes
Neuilly-sur-Seine
never met again

 rain and sun's
 fox   wedding

danish and english lists

skærne
skær
skæv
skæven
skarven
skale
svæk
råge
gräkrage
skøv

video display units
cutting blades
warped
mote
cormorant
bowls
weakening
rook
hooded crow
royston crow
royston hertfordshire
dust

y r n o t e b k s

a conversation with yr notebooks

you:

10:13
chst
lats
shoulders
tris

10:14
bis
f.arm

10.16     lwr bk
              legs
10.20     chst
              tris
              f  arms
10.21     bis
              shldrs
10.245   l.b.
              traps
              legs
10.26     chst
              bis
10.27     tris
10.2829 shldrs
              f. arms
11.3       bis
              chest
....................................

you:

" S i l e n t    H o u s e "

..........................................................

me:

suggestions for comfort
boots    for    circulation

home         help         aid

life                  insurance
death              certificate

.................................................................

f i l m

                                                                           Pierre Berger/Photo Researchers

The causeway here

in IJsselmeer

retrieves

lifelong recurrent dream of driving

to the horizon,

as water laps such a road,

then covers it.

The sea rising in centimeters,

and I driving into submerged,

as if there were no other

possible.

The dreams always ends

still in motion,

no land in sight.

Fade to sedan,

wheels on road,

receding dorsal,

sluicing

forward.

mourning

fog
watered
read

ZuiderZee
IJsselmeer

anchovy for eel
marsh carr sieved

through river sea lake lock

looking north
cold cod
rising

c h i r p

sounds exactly like

o r p i m e n t

gold river china
runs opaquely cinnabar
fishermen's stained knees


(september chongqing 2012)

absolutely                   not

a s    i m p o r t a n t    as

grey sky scullery
scudding crew on dark river


you are here.
no. you are not.

describe awake?
one oar

listen
lose it
repeat
infinitely

grey skin of scull or
scalding light in dark river?

august
pumpkins ripe
few roses
old plum without bloom or fruit
less is less
not late.

s e r e i n

dusk drizzle cloudless



s u h r a n from ww.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/serein

archaic :  the supposed fall of dew from a clear sky just after sunset

      mist or fine rain falling from an apparently clear sky

t r i g g e r f i n g e r

splint
tied to

and one more thing....

n o

tonight is cool
crickets

she told me
when I was away you had evening guests
cooked meat
drank wine
smoked cigars.

I can tell you now
love
that it was good you did so

e a r

silence of the other as one speaks -

are you there?

yes. I am listening.

garden(d)

two small strawberries
daylily leaves cut to ground

2 h a i k u

land spit sit - Lake Erie                                                                                                                    

east - outlying Doggerland

is  west - east is west



from inland outward

there between river and lake

known returns - eerie

b u i l d

sweep away
collapse into
come out of

return from

currently cover

weeks
driven by
the desire to

a s c e n t

countertenor?
"It's Magic"

contralto?
judy
judy
judy

it's magic.

the question being
can i still the interference

painting not for or to
just painting

forest is a pun on nirvana
wrinkle a pun on time

cried today
thanking you for this -

time

eyes working
waking
up

m i r a c l e s

water into wine

grain houses into priests 

the family tree
stops with me
she said

two
now
one
said
of the dead


but also diptychs

k a t h a r i n e l o r r a i n e

my mother's hands undone
31
( born to )
91
( if alive )


she
life's disciple

khayyam

deneb
the brightest

remains to be seen
an unknown  haplogroup
a patronym
a river

remains to be seen

after practice

with patience

clearly

57 degrees in summer
knowing what is
and what is not

"An ancient pot is not a people."

sequencing genome
designating haplogroup
there are ghosts in these numbers and letters

how can it be otherness within a mind
so fundamentally imaginative?

i am looking at a photo of an ivory cup
dionysos triumphing in india
byzantium mid-6th century ce
a gift of j. pierpont morgan
acquired by the metropolitan museum of art
1917

one war to another

walking 7 miles (11.2654 kms) does not ease restlessness.
i arrive, by consent, at the same point of departure.

the ring finger, left hand, lower phalange, dislocates w/o your wedding band.
this occurs frequently since you died.

small rabbits are not afraid of me.
i try to tell them humans are dangerous. we have cars and dogs.
they are skeptical.

there are too many ants in the garden this year.
they are ants, not termites.
that's the good news.

my friends have to disappear into their lives.
i have anticipated that, but am still a bit dazed by the abruptness.

of course there is the illusion of order.
that is called time.

of course there is  is.
that is called life -


with no enduring stability.

hypocritical delivery

"I'm fine."
"It's under consideration."
"We are awaiting further results."
"It's complicated."
"I'd rather not say."

"Thank you for calling."

in the studio

water black
light white
see these
two
viewed together for
8 hours

paint weary

she  stops  thinking.

까 치

good
luck

plangency
a melancholic sound

sixty-fourth note
never reached

this the summer you are not
these the flowers you cannot see
the cool wind means nothing

the cicadas heard me
whisper
"death, the end maker"
and sang on anyway

90

she's
small
slim
long-haired
clear

with a garden
(weeded)
house
(spotless)

drives a cadillac!

says, "get in. we're going somewhere."

fox barks
2 nights in a row

big moons! small foxes!

before dinner in the garden
she saw dust colored birds
moving like brown water among the plants

filming water
salem
calls to me
and allows me to kiss the air beside his cheek like a mother

I walked dusk on sunday
lonely for your simple expression of
presence

I cry in celebration
looking up at the moon

warning

desire is breaking down the door

huginn and muninn meet cicero

Imagine!
The eloquence and decipherment!
The style, the delivery, the caws!

studio (study)

sometimes I wonder if I am too quiet for this profession
I prefer crayfish to car seats
water to parties
my love of life
filtered through
one
summer cold
drop of light

this

lasts longer
when listened to.

image of (May 7 1915)

Vanderbilt and Frohman
tying life jackets to baby baskets
a Moses armada
off Ireland
men and babies
survived sinking
taken by turbulence

honoria

Justa Grata
born to Placidia
who intervened
when
she chose Attila
and he chose her
a slur to her brother

afterwards
no record of death or slavery

I prefer her here
in unclear history
a mystery

aloysius

rich
young
sick
dead
blessed

driven by
dwelt in
meant for
all about

grieving for what does not exist

bhikku says
see
how your heart failed you

friends

still

years

after

haenyo

she fishers
see
many dreams
that deepen
over time

these divers record them:

brothers flat broke
mothers wanting riches
houses needing repairs


women with lungs like full bladders
age in this blue
daughter to grandmother
holding life for fifteen, twenty minutes
for years
for each other


dream of


20 meters of breathing
20 meters of being


you

p       i       t       c       h

single tones turn

s o u n d     to     s o n g

"the sorrows of the world are margins of hope"

two dreams

the first

you in profile
walking younger
through rooms
a snail's pace
holding balloons

the second

an open 1628 treatise on color
blind blue
sudden yellows
a radiance
an integration
of Guo Xi
Dutch gold

p i t c h

fishers

a family of


quiet

ignoring signs

to not walk near water


the one most remembered

winding white line about

a short rod

like a spindle

her toes

slightly touching the river

is

something

uncertainty

a chordata

the way we live

locating hidden rhythms

changing remaining

essential

올라

up

올라

올라
올라
올라

실례합니다

보기

올라

---------

up
up
up

excuse me

look

up

-------

digt

Svækkelse
ord,

svækkelse
fugle,

falde i havet.

Jeg

svække.

Forstumme.

Falder i havet,

dette hav,

dette digt,

mig.

________

Weakening
words,

weakening
birds,

fall into the sea.

I

weaken.

Silence(d).

Fall into the sea,

this sea,

this poem,

me.

dream

After midnight
a thunderstorm
passing swiftly
cleans the air.

I walk through the early morning,
into an emergency room,
peeking into consulting cubicles.

Doctors are treating injuries -

a geographer half smothered by nightmares,

an amber gatherer with burnt fingers,

and an oil rig worker,

coughing in endless eruptive spurts.

Weirdly, the only
sounds are birdsongs -

the white crowned sparrow,
(geographer)

a chickadee,
(amber gatherer)

a robin
(oil rig worker).

solstice

counting coup

haiku counting syllables
7  5  7
coup? 19 but 12 will do

disadvantages of systems

to list
to wander
to remain

advantages of systems

to list
to wander
to remain

An apparition (2006-2014)

which is a repossession of

an interior residential development

close, with a certain smell

awakening memories

involving musical aptitude

and food,

including

revolving references

to anniversaries, births, deaths

(together with other events)

and tastes

not quite audible.

Welcome to a neighborhood of half-lit streets,

two-thirds of it unknown.

my garden in early june 2006 - before leaving for Korea

plums have both blossomed
pear and pin cherry in full glory
new green unfurls
currants, sweet box, maple
a carpet of galium
violets - purple, freckled, white
the roses reach the second story
iberis, called candytuft
cimicifuga
leopard's bane
lamium
brilliant gold, pale pink, red-violet
bleeding heart
columbine
sedum of all sorts
lovage
mint
marjoram
melissa

Yi Li

sees

the sun lighting Crown Rock.

At dawn he empties

his green wine jar

into the

Yangtze.

six fingered notes

the imagined lives within

refuse to complete us

pen and brown ink, gray wash

the sun

6 women survivors (Lampedusa Oct. 3 2013)


as
six
we
gained
the
shore


8 months later


now
adrift
once
more 

endothermique

Reynauds constriction
cold cold
the blue

cold day
good for

1

Four months ago, in early afternoon, it was very cold.
Yellow sun flooded the white room.

Today it rains, rains, rains.
The garden grows in your signature yellow.

I'm wearing yellow today - yellow

4 death
4 happiness
4 you
4 the root, earth.

You were white and yellow - my bright, gentle king -
jaundiced, bruised, anemic, white in light, the cleanest man in the house,
surrounded by love.

You were the purity of last things, death's wisdom.

This yellowed view (I've colored it so) of you remains-
those half closed eyes,
white (never blue again),
and slightly open lips.

Your used body, sighed,
under cotton the color of marigold.

You died.


2

You're resting.

You're whittled bone ash
out
out
out of a body
into a black box
on a white dresser.

You're waiting.

The white room is waiting.

I change the flowers -
chrysanthemum
lily
snowdrop
ornamental spurge
muguet
jasmine.


3

Parting you - a recipe

Take you
(yellow, black and white) cats
open boxes
mix bone
throw together
flow together

into 2 oceans,
water of rivers, seas
This is mixed water you
missing parts of you
giving parts of you
returning parts of you
reserving parts of you.

4

You wanted this -
to be a little everywhere
and not at all.

You said love's ashes
should be separated,
anxiety-free.

You're
the man
asking oceans to divide you
so no shore
or other shore
can interfere with your

Liberation.

my ark

K  l  a  m  a  t  h     F  a  l  l  s

a  l  b  i  n  o      p  o  r  c  u  p  i  n  e

specimen

who saw it first?

a painter

a poet

an archeologist?

names of

because we cannot say it
because we cannot see it

our enigmas have names

we've abandoned the lexicon
the lens

to a vast yellowing field of paper

our westerly nets shifting east now

our names too

ground down to days

said spelled sifted

shaped

not wholly ours now

these ruins

these roles

quoin

office contents
three bags full
empty desk
blank calendar

this cornerstone
through your death and dying
build another
now
bridging
your ashes and mine

quite
quiet
this
quit.

Bhikku says

pluck out your desire
devote yourself
to peace.

moving forward

it has occurred to me that
the circumstances of
my inner economy
of my new navigation
could be inexplicably difficult to explain

last

the shoe
sprung
toward
the state of things
was somehow left behind
or perhaps is

the sole survivor.

my hands and feet turn blue

bellweather

butterfly extremities

that lift
the cold hearted
the cruel spring

and move warm inland

hypothetical

if
not
had
not

an unreal
murmuration

is it?

remains to be

or

hypothetically

never

was

green

rain

sky

ait

all
these
________

outnumbered


(posthumously)

actualized

memorium

you
indelible
reach the place of peace

Andokides

lost
5th blue stone
one ring
(you at 47)


found!


bhikku says


don't panic!

first warm after cold

this sun has undone me

you

you

you

no longer

g a r d e n

ten scenes in the dragon of heaven temple

1
worm
2
bone
3
d
o
w
n
pour
4
``````````````````````````````````````````````````
5
sixteen birds
cardinal, olive warbler, nuthatch, downy woodpecker,
house finch, carolina wren, robin, black-crowned sparrow,
goldfinch, hermit thrush, ovenbird, song sparrow,
crow, gull, mallard, goose
6
lid open
7
thunderstorm
8
sun
9
a woman in
10
yellow

was
once
awake

ache

every

2

ash i naga




te naga






i    n   aga




a  s  h
i  n  

a  s  h      

xpansive

repertoire

closed

textual convolution

light
blue

sky

annex

-ed

end

-ed

sound link image f l o w

soon new month
now new moon

no you

dhamma says

all processes are painful

2 by ko un

One white butterfly,

ghost of wisdom, is flying

over the foolish sea.

Decades of language—

despite misuse, abuse, violence—

is not your language you?

You must protect the nouns,

the hometown you used to look down on

from the hilltops that since have disappeared,

abolished souls,

the verbs, adverbs, sad adjectives

that vanished during the city night,

were abolished

to become a civilisation of the past,

and at length its skeleton. 

first time traveling without you

as a finality

as a death

as an end

what is left are

the shoes walking

the rolling of luggage the other departures and the arrival of 

a final me

alone

tired of voices

of too much

when a little is a lot

is

really

all one can take

that is 

a little

all one can see

that is

a

little

in time

closing and opening

what don’t you know

fills a heavy bota

a flotilla

of unanswered

and unawareness

airport bags and hair

the click of a can

reminds

this morning

a downy woodpecker’s beak

so small so loud

a little

a little

lousy how everything is filling up

people

lonely places

even the mind

hasn’t time for emptiness

children do

children do

“do you need me to come over there?”

to see the skaggerak and kattegat

to see seine

nets

and

voyages

the sea

is a dream

is a

seized dream

inside the mountain that is mind

that has no sea

but the me

inside

you can be along the danube

along the side of your mind where the water is

where the water sourced

source

source

dhamma says

self

do not neglect your welfare

Poe

dark man
white dog

night
light

message

leaves gathered
soil warmed
daylily
jonquil
tulip
bud swell
tell
robin


sing.

fix things?
grief cannot be fixed
it is not a broken condition

grief is a natural companion of love, and has its own acutely individual course, its own sensibility. There is no “right” course.

strength

tested

undone

re
re
re

gained

the critical moment

knowing the moment of discovery
condenses
khandas to essential suffering

asleep
stumble forward

aware
peace released

learn to know
grow

grief

the mind flu
of grief
thought leaves
aching lines
leaking
leaking
leaving


listening

passage


(expunged)

dream

the night universe

a billion
thoughts
souls
stars

repeated to the ends
of end

there you are
my love
far away
joining
what may dance
or drift

you
thoughts
souls
stars
you
dead and alive
a deft infinity


waving once
you turn
to go on
and on
and
on

“Why not go out on a limb? That's where the fruit is.” 

― Will Rogers

SONNET 56

Sweet love, renew thy force; be it not said  Thy edge should blunter be than appetite,  Which but to-day by feeding is allay'd,  To-morrow sharpen'd in his former might:  So, love, be thou; although to-day thou fill  Thy hungry eyes even till they wink with fullness, To-morrow see again, and do not kill  The spirit of love with a perpetual dullness. Let this sad interim like the ocean be  Which parts the shore, where two contracted new Come daily to the banks, that, when they see  Return of love, more blest may be the view;  Else call it winter, which being full of care  Makes summer's welcome thrice more wish'd, more rare.

posole

raven

morning

caw

cawcawcaw

caws

lost in northern New Mexico
the continental divide crossed twice

underneath lost
noise
in rooms
car
buildings

wind
voices

traffic
air

blood moon

soon

ides

of April

sun
singed

red

dream

dream says
love good byes
good human beings

go

ahead

bhikku says

invite voyages

see in this blind world

go

ahead

mind

too much
much

need


s  p  a  c  e

night sky

As Orion flees to Reykjavik,

midsky appear

Cassiopeia  Andromeda

surrounded by animals

animus mundi

progenitors

plantlet

Slip
cutting
into water.

Bhikku says
"restrained of hand,... restrained of foot..."

(still)

root

joy.

I don't want to talk about death or dying today.
I don't want to weep.
I don't want to worry  about students, teachers, or admin's numbers and goals.

I don't want to crease my mind with laundry like this.

I am sitting where, for three of four generations, people in this house have sat to look out and down the hill toward the river. The sun is cold in April. The air has widened. A fulvic aroma has seeped in, a black smell as swiftly encompassing as the melting river.

The geese that do are flying elsewhere. The snowbirds are returning home.

Changes come, revolving, repositioning, unstoppable.

Hills help me embrace change.

I have always sat on hills to think. They are natural confidants, and empathic.

Hills know how to accept suffering and happiness.

This particular hill has my nest, where I make things. It has now, for about a week, been humming
very quietly, underneath the hours, through the birdsong. This particular hum I am familiar with. It's an invitation to open out, to imagine, to breathe. I have yet to refuse such an offer.

First Quarter April

1
Sheltering
snow mold,
an elm pruned
shows
slow
slow
bud swell.

2
Downy woodpeckers cluck.

Singing,
cardinals,
thrushes (wood, robin),
starlings and  house sparrows
exhibit
prominent dimorphism.


3
During days

the weather turns in hours -
fog,
pellets of doomed snow,
thick drizzle,
dry sun chill.


4
Stars!

The night of bears arrives.

Near the horizon, north, the hunter flees.

actualization of

deeds

after equinox

sky's open
even cold
can't stop
this day

splayed

march was

ash and passion

next

exit wildlife control
humane specialists
that leave bloody squirrel to die in the dark

exit
working blind
blind mountain work
an avalanche

exit
grief encounters of the third person
don't
know
what this is

after cruel
after too much fuel
after
this
this this

what comes next?

ambivert

between

birds sing

"Wake up!"

list

ordinary

how to serve
an aching heart


when it is impossible
to shift
to sift
to sieve
through so much

where to put things?

what to say?

why say anything?

wish to fly
to another dark place


sun,

come

soon.

learning

curves
serve

lift

up
midair

do you like birds?
canarias
pitch bulls
crooning wolves

that's the end of cold
biting
bright

soon I'll sleep
a good day
painful
real
slurred.

turn

when
bruise
blood
breath
wane
when
bone
ash
itch
remain

when without has won

when the wide opens

turn.

missed you
missed you
too

blue and red light therapy

During the first few experiments

the disciples of light

were amazed

no one believed it

stunned

the first blue

killed

bacteria

red

raised the eye two lines

blue 

went into streams and rivers

scooped water from the surface

and heat-saved

drank the sun

why does it work?

red light reels

photosynthesis

chloroplasts mitochondria

rescues the metabolically challenged

tune then to

the bluest the bluest

pathways

pathways

open to the sun

3 months 2014

epiphany
first and last
ash and passion

the snow returns
not much falling
enough to remind us
all warmth in March
is deceptive here

the clocks rhythym
beats forward
church bells retreat

the Lenten sun
undone

Baucis and Philomen

it is 41 days without you
I made a painting of this moment
when you pleaded with life to take us together
or you first
two trees
one earth
triangular reach
white separation

"One problem is insoluble. One day the blow will fall and separate us. No friendly god
will turn us into a tree to shade the farm.
...I lack the means of imagining the moment of separation. As I am neither able nor willing to imagine another life, some kind of life beyond the frontier, the perspective is appalling. That nobody will have not even have a memory of an affinity."

Ingmar Bergman, The Magic Lantern

illuminata

what if this were everything?
would it be enough?
yes

Freedom is beautiful. Grief is its sister…to live and love well is to lose deeply, and with finality as only life presents. 

And that is as it should be. 

But the terrible ache cannot be pushed aside. It has to be free too.

scratch

on my leg
a scratch


your last
touch
heals
slow



37 days

don't go

grief
slams against me

my chest hurts

my arms ache
for you

I walk downstairs

black box
white bone dust

no arms

When does my deep mind return?
Saw it for a moment yesterday, wandering around the studio.

middle

Wednesday
in white
enveloped in white
where is the lamp?

cars are lamps
and the jasmine with new leaves also
lamplights
in white

I'm in the  middle, half-lit,
between next and after
in white

4 March

one month ago
you died
it is 11F  outside
and snowing

dhamma says
no clouded sky or mountain cleft
no river valley
can hide one from death

you did not hide
sun lit your face
as you left us


it is snowing
a boy you knew
nearly died yesterday


your best friend's pain is palpable
unconstructed
and very, very beautiful


you were beautiful


108 times each day I send loving kindness to all things
and nothings
remembering now you are both

Icaro

Icaro came late to us today
too late for you my love
to see a young man who also fell from the sky

this man was hungry and lost

as we were once

I fed the stranger as the Greeks and Ottawa say you must

I thought of your white beard flashing under an Aegean sun
a skiff of a man
looking for an island
or a boy
or an end
in summer

twice

I cried
with sounds that I did not recognize as mine

achilles' shield

we agreed
it was the finest unseen thing ever described
a leather sea of story

eleven days

ten to mourn him
the eleventh to burn him
as he rises
above the city walls
falling as he did
too proud
too
soon

receipt

weather

2 degrees
dhamma says
don't speak harshly to anyone

0 degrees
moon waning crescent
sun


one
can watch the cycle from outside in
begin
begin
begin
again

each day
a little more finality leaks in

a wild turkey on the steps
sits
she know it's
the wrong time of year
for turkeys
feeds it dry grains
waits

comes along a small flock
hers

fighting a shadow, an imagined angel

ice dam

her test

she said
my father
as I twisted and dived
from the platform
wasn't there to catch me
and I sank
as his hands surrounded mine
pulled
me
up for air 

twenty days without you
will I count
or lose the days?

so many words now
they surround me

I wish for your quiet
your book in hand
your sleep

concordia

too many


stop


stop


stop

one step
the sun
two
24 degrees


I write
I fold
I gild
I mourn

one step

filming the beads
seeing things now

two

night

five o'clock
a bark
a whine
a fox whinnies
underneath
blurred moon

how can I balance so much
one hand absent
living without you
a secret pain
that has to be balanced too

winter

snow
ice
death
melt
thaw
a sudden wing
wings
winged
swollen singing
in
bare bushes
brush
hushed midnight
morning blizzard

what storm haven't we seen this winter?

plaid

still have the plaid scarf
what when we met
set
you apart
new not wool
(too poor for that)
on white
four  aubergine
one crimson
one scarlet
four blue
blue blue
like your eyes

holes full of love
eyes see

daylight

bow
shovel
teach

open close

bathe