“all eyes, the creatures of the world look out into the Open”
—Rilke
—Rilke
like Dante covered in pollen
or stand here in air as a crow sometimes
over cars and carrion
bright as Orion unknown, unknowable on wind-draft
what is “a graven image”
freely given
forbidden in fields of disregarded
sowbugs and root-hairs
our soul a worn shoe
milk-light poured over stone
grained through with thought’s difficult mica
there is no metaphysics
that is not also trees
whether we could echo each other ear to ear voice to vanishing
unbaptized, undocumented
stars watch us more intently in
bright daylight when we cease
to believe in them
their rapture field
gone suddenly Osiris-bright, raptors
seen and unseen conversing
over meadow ellipse
o spider—“mind swung by a grass blade”
I lost my way or my way lost me a chrysalis imploded
I tremble I shake the wind of me
neither reasonable nor unreasonable, like all wild beasts day-glo in black-light
BART trains flash redwoods
cirrostratic locution
I can’t tell stories in the right order
urgency of beginning again each moment overthrown
borne through the breathing pores of
cordate leaves
stigmata, stomata
we are not as broken as I feared nor as whole
no other choice but each other
I + Thou
the risk of
aorta aria
my mouth your ears whose words stream our mother tongue green
nor any kind of lightness that will carry us
but some scraped down, scarred
knit and unknit
knotted flux felt in the real
felt in the non-allegorical
digestion and assimilation of human action human error
human hindrance hunger the hate the hate the hate as though our spirit
became a gold-finch
in cacophonic blur of motion
whose wings do no one further harm
warheads gone astray, neurological, milk-thistle and warblers in fields
in cities fall-out
even the touch of my hand
is toxic to some
lichen, fish, seabirds
to nations where I’ve never been
sorrow’s narrows widen paradise
not one soul turned away
from green earth’s complicities
howling down canyon along willows, a fiction of fact set against the skin
in thin shadows a gray fox approaches his eyes bright with survival
with more than survival—curiosity, a kind of haggard happiness
and how silently
he vanishes into
a hairsbreadth
threaded
there’s a man living rough
who calls and calls for his lost dog
shivering in poison oak, then back into street
traffic, sees us
eyes rinsed through with holy
bewilderment
late at night then later it’s late though the planets rest not their violet wake
or stand here in air as a crow sometimes
over cars and carrion
bright as Orion unknown, unknowable on wind-draft
what is “a graven image”
freely given
forbidden in fields of disregarded
sowbugs and root-hairs
our soul a worn shoe
milk-light poured over stone
grained through with thought’s difficult mica
there is no metaphysics
that is not also trees
whether we could echo each other ear to ear voice to vanishing
unbaptized, undocumented
stars watch us more intently in
bright daylight when we cease
to believe in them
their rapture field
gone suddenly Osiris-bright, raptors
seen and unseen conversing
over meadow ellipse
o spider—“mind swung by a grass blade”
I lost my way or my way lost me a chrysalis imploded
I tremble I shake the wind of me
neither reasonable nor unreasonable, like all wild beasts day-glo in black-light
BART trains flash redwoods
cirrostratic locution
I can’t tell stories in the right order
urgency of beginning again each moment overthrown
borne through the breathing pores of
cordate leaves
stigmata, stomata
we are not as broken as I feared nor as whole
no other choice but each other
I + Thou
the risk of
aorta aria
my mouth your ears whose words stream our mother tongue green
nor any kind of lightness that will carry us
but some scraped down, scarred
knit and unknit
knotted flux felt in the real
felt in the non-allegorical
digestion and assimilation of human action human error
human hindrance hunger the hate the hate the hate as though our spirit
became a gold-finch
in cacophonic blur of motion
whose wings do no one further harm
warheads gone astray, neurological, milk-thistle and warblers in fields
in cities fall-out
even the touch of my hand
is toxic to some
lichen, fish, seabirds
to nations where I’ve never been
sorrow’s narrows widen paradise
not one soul turned away
from green earth’s complicities
howling down canyon along willows, a fiction of fact set against the skin
in thin shadows a gray fox approaches his eyes bright with survival
with more than survival—curiosity, a kind of haggard happiness
and how silently
he vanishes into
a hairsbreadth
threaded
there’s a man living rough
who calls and calls for his lost dog
shivering in poison oak, then back into street
traffic, sees us
eyes rinsed through with holy
bewilderment
late at night then later it’s late though the planets rest not their violet wake