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

apollonia

talking to you

makes me cry
because
now I can see
clearly
what you are

what he was

what I am

what we all are

finish the boats and beads and bildung

navigation

possible

17 noon

ice and wind

sting

sparrows and wrens sing

louder

17

moon waning gibbous
the roundness of pain
greater than half
not fully encompassing
less than you

blinding snow
my bridge has disappeared

systems and processes

an amalgam

of light and darkness

108 resumed

after you died
bowing made me nauseous
dizzy
I was undone
today
the sun
and all bows
resumed
I felt the bones of you
in my I
and then you left
only this
a graceful realignment

grief

a permafrost
a tundral presence
under
lichen
the migration of this sadness
and stars

found

a note
"Earth is a conductor of acoustical resonance"

weeping
laughter
the conversational voices of the sickroom
the ambulatory in and out of the peripatetic
you
you
you

142 pounds have become 10.6 pounds of ash
a strong man now blows with the wind
and that is right and good
and as he wished

I am not afraid
that too
as he wished

today

wake with
grief in my mouth
cardinal's song washes it out

yesterday

brought you home
a black box
ash
bits of bone
yellow flowers
Buddha

this small box full of you

you in my mind

how beautiful you were
even as I last saw you.

it's a trick
this practical mind
sleight of hand

I am not fooled

first thing
love
sun
looking at this hand
raised from cloud cover
awake

dream of this white
and salt
so much white

so cold
but your bones
warm

each day I wake and sleep
first and last "i love you"
just what i need
those certain words
a lingering touch
an indivisible

you.

after

how to do this?
There is an accumulation of so much love
and suffering

an intensely private loneliness

Po

winter sadness

white

dog

light.

4 February 2014

he one sigh


died.