metaphor
I talked
that these poems might speak
for what
I couldn’t say
from A Year’s Turning
WINTER
Through the dark
which gives it light
for us
Polaris
the first we see
is not so far
fifty years
counting by how light will burst
with time, through space
Watching this star
pulls me from this place
my feet lose the ground / I
am nowhere / everywhere
I saw a bat
dusting the ceiling
I thought they slept in winter
and killed him with a tennis racket
Shock in my wrist
he spunked like a hollow ball
and faded on the floor
but I did not trust his death
An empty tree is filled with stars
and we, tired of dreams
seek new forms
A constellation without name
is waiting to become
and light
flickers from a distant farm
There will be no coming back
to fill with objects
this longing for unknown things
Night
waits to become
all we impose upon her
SPRING
Primary motion
A Cooper’s hawk
sails its patterns
circles and dips
hovers and rolls
Wings
form the intent
the hunt of eyes
larger than a man’s
followed and fought
against cold silence
And how did you
come to be ordinary
though you can’t
convince yourself
This field of wild mustard
a sky set in rain
a place for dreaming / a place
to graze your mind
But the gun is lowered
the mind won’t graze
Why here
in a field of wild mustard
and how did you come to be ordinary
though you won’t
convince yourself
All night the rain
driving us through sleep
washes tracks from the road
washes snow from the fields
and somewhere
beyond the rain
the moon
hangs thoughtlessly ornamental
in the sky
SUMMER
Pine trees
and the grasses in a pine forest
like sand vaporized
pulse out a dry smell
as you climb higher
and breathe harder
I stopped to rest
on a fallen tree
I thought of you
gone
and almost suffocated
In the moonlight mountains
darker as they are closer
are lighter
farther away
Clearly / I need
more light
to see
Often these clouds are beautiful
but I
can see storms in them
