You

A word about to be spoken
ends in its weight
as a drifting river
to a space that drops
its shadow, or as a pendant
that swings in the listener's eyes,
alive with want and disbelief.

Before the poem is written,
there is a stillness of winter branches
like a runner leaping over a hurdle,
when the obstacle and you don't matter.
When the feet touch the dirt, you know
yourself as your history and images awaken
in contact of where gravity delivered
you through the illusion of motion.
Like a child you were unaware of the points
of infinity that split your presence in divits,
where the assumption of wholeness separated
from its believing, and lowerd its glare of ignorance

You have been here as long as you.
Don't worry about moving.
There will be a time when the guide of a clock
is set to its opposite. It will be only time
until there will be no beginning. Go back
and you will forget who you are. And when
you are born, try to remember what was before.

Telling Stories

If I had a brother, I would name him.
Combing his hair would feel like giving,
though his reflection couldn't be seen in the mirror.
Relishing in our disagreements, I would want to talk
less to people. On a public bus, we would sit together
and speak nonsense - not those dialogues that want
to be important. I would tell him about a stone
I saw in Idaho that was perfectly yellow.
He would tell me how he got caught in a blackberry bush
while walking on beach train tracks.
We would open our eyes wide
and never remember our names.

Our Persistence of Waking

Our Persistence of Waking

Sleep is a dream,
believing we can find solace
in surrendering our persistence
of waking, though our eyes never close
in the dark of our memory
and desire for a different name.

When we rise
we are the same 
as the illusion of yesterday -
sitting in the chair
where we always contemplate
the air of morning.

If I Could Not Speak

If I Could Not Speak

If I could not speak,
I would hear my garden
stall in its hum of insects
and the wind giving a voice
to rhododendron leaves.

How my breath would scathe
the inner corridors of my lungs and throat,
and the new air
mixing with what it was seconds earlier.

The thoughts that plead
for manifestation when silence
is like a shadow
under a sun-lit window.

And then I would call
the names that are lost in speech
from the recesses of my memory,
hearing each one as a story.

I would grow tired
of meaning, losing my sense
of knowing - walking
out in the garden singing
without a sound.

I Heard a Conversation

I Heard a Conversation

I heard a conversation in a language
I couldn't understand, circling in it sounds
like spices being stirred in tea,
its aroma fixating my memory on scenes
I haven't seen, as if a dream had been speaking
to me in a low-lit room, the voice rustling
the speckled, ebony cloth above.

I could have been a stranger
to the infallible words
spoken to a mother, but I know
my ignorance too well
to be fooled by meaning.

At Last

At Last

I have children
waiting in you.
This time, when the cherry blossoms
fall, we meditate like a name
remembering its sound.

We wake up for a day
without a list,
walking the streets for a piece
of our face that can't be
seen in mirrors.

One moment, you are born
with memories
lighter than wind,
and a future
as frail as blossoms.

When It Happens (rough draft)

When It Happens

The wind arises
when we don't think.

Our memories are shards
of glass, overcome
by meadow's dew,
the petals' fragrance
suspended over our reflection.

What I could be
is more than enough.
I am standing over
watches that have worked
out of time.

I have lost the moment -
I am everywhere.

A Day at Sand Point

A Day at Sand Point

I was born with a red traffic light
set outside the hospital window.
Ambling the crosswalk
was a lanky high-runger with curly hair,
his mustache itching from an unknown cause.
A small brigade of crows
had latched on to electric wires,
where the frigid morning wind tossed
their unassuming, straw-like limbs.

I had no time to be in blankets.
From another life, a hole had been blown
in my heart - the doctor's requested that I stay
with their knife and operation lights
until I forgot the hand of my mother.

Thoughts

Thoughts

Sometimes they are ringing
incisions, when to listen to them
you believe you have spoken.

They could be crooked-mouthed birds
singing without melody, hanging from a tree
far away, strained from your dispassion.

Maybe clotted rodents by the door
whose fear prevents the will
of their feet to intervene our silent joys.

Or rushes that split the wind
though the air continues like colors
mixed by its opposite tone.

But before they have penetrated us
and we believe their stories,
they are flits in a still air

ruled by an unnamable fixture
that was once named by our birth
and bound to what we were to become.

Putting the Jar of Grape Juice Back

Putting the Jar of Grape Juice Back

The white sheen of this cap
could be dreams of winter in Chicago
when a walker along Lake Michigan gazes
across the tamed waters in sunlight
that speaks of early dusk.
Its ridged edges could be a memory
of tractor tracks at the childhood farm,
where chickadees sang each morning the same way
since the first day of care.
But when I slide the furrows of its inner casing
into the lines that once held it tight,
it is just a blind act, where the light of a face
from giving and taking is a recollection
for more silent days.

Walking

Walking

This month, I pay the bills late,
writing stories of who I used to be.
It could have been different if I took longer walks,
observing the small changes in the street -
if I had my abandon to cover an entire length
of a street name. I bought new shoes today
for work and thought of traveling weightless -
to leave my habitual bag from my shoulder
and see how my body moves. Maybe tomorrow
I'll finally remember to straighten out my back,
to swing my arms loose like I had been walking for hours -
not wanting to know where my steps will take me.

-----

In the Watch of your Feet

In the Watch of your Feet

I read the life of a monk and wanted to walk
on a market road with lanterns
and speak to the awnings about where I could rest
my voice. I sang above the reach of my eyes
and forgot the street, that people stared with twitched mouth,
pressing their ideas to almost speak. I would rather have a conversation
with a tree, laying against its trunk with my voice
given away to the one who can carry it. I could travel until my self
was forgotten like a child first seeing flowers -
I have been with my self for as long as I am
and I have tired my eyes in my sight -
now I can only travel in the watch of your feet.

The Will (draft)

The Will (draft)

Between the thickets of grass, I sit in my testing chair,
pausing in conversation to relieve my words
from desire - it is the stillness
in me that watches the wind.
My speech wants to move,
clinging to the hand -
when will I walk out
my thoughts with silence?
I had dreamt that going home would be quiet,
hearing the empty steps
of my ambition on a clear road.
The fixtures of the sky told me
to look down to where I stand
and throw my questions to a still wind,
that the stems of grass would not stir.

Here is Where

Here is Where

As fire in fire rests,
I want to create a desert
and hold nothing.
The morsels I carry
dug in the ground
where they remember
their home placed outside
of quietness.

I can not revel in my skin
when my mind aches in separation -
how can I grow toward you
when I do not sing?

There is only persistence:
to follow the sounds
that keep my eyes,
or to watch my steps
into the garden.

My Uncle's Library

My Uncle's Library

Yesterday, I worshipped a book.
Kneeling with weak knees, my eyes interpreted
unread words, speaking as the weight
in my hands. How can I
not open the one who told me to read again and again?
After one sentence, I knew what to say.
In the crevice, I carefully slid it back,
still kneeling, knowing I would be here, again.

Nirakula

Nirakula

There is the view of trees that are worshipped,
changing shade by the turn of leaves -
the birds whose panel of feathers shackle inconsistent
attention -- the watcher feels only for its sight -
the wind storms that pass like a ruffian
through the tall growth, and tempt the mountain peaks
with a burial -- it speaks through the torments of its speech.

From the mountain's flat top, she surveys beneath:
the wind from shifting, the vibration from stepping,
the dissonant echo from separation that would raise the faces
to protection, the frantic inspiration to hold another
in the release of your self - her presence sits awake
without dust, the eyes seeing its reflection.

Mata

Mata

Mercy is with a smile
from a mother that never sleeps -
like the steady beams that climb
through the night road, the motion
of her eyes lift her children.
And down we arise
at her feet, offering our head
on a tray of devotion
that her breath can blow our thoughts like sand
that grudgingly attempts to stick to the wind.

To the Bluff

To the Bluff

In the spring, there is more shade
to drop your head into, to linger and wait.
We praised the sun, rising out of winter
like the birth of a child.

Expanding like muscle, trees lull stems into widening
and the darkness beneath thickens.
The fragrance of a meadow makes your eyes clean
in the shade, turning by the wind.

To the bluff of drop and above,
the waves creasing over its finality,
almost reaching, almost reaching.

The Poem that Saved the World

The Poem that Saved the World

The shape of the letters
light the faces -
their serenity in no other
place than the realm above.

With a word that is water
and no distinction to movement -
the reader’s eyes relish in broken watches,
the sounds of what has been read wisping to the hand that gives.

Even the empty page
has threads of effulgence
that the moon cannot speak
for or against its blinding sight.

Bowing together as a leaf leans towards the sun -
who knows difference in reverence?
To feel contentment, we all sit
to empty our eyes of words, that we may see union in our faces.

Soft, Floating Smiles

Soft, Floating Smiles

I could swear upon a hundred days
that the formal life leads to death,
that my chin could break in rigor
with soft, floating smiles.

The eyes stern form pity for the idle self,
that I may call a worn vision the fire
that clings after burning,
and the wish of bane in joyful wiles.

Boiling Watch

Boiling Watch

The ambition
of the hands meet the ripples
of a mind plain,
where blue jay penetrate urge
of staid claws
into the boughs vibrating
with fragrance - still
with its course emptying, kind
smells lower eyes.
Unfurling the blinds over
glass, where to see
through is denying sight that
burns at night, lifts
the blinding glow
of day - whoever watches
forgets the time.