I have to write this quickly
before the flare dies out
and day brings back my night.
A burning autumnal light
backlit by a harvest sun.
This melancholic flourish
before the fall of garden gloves.
I wonder more and more
about the second life of plants
overgrowing toward their end.
I wonder about the stillness
where hardly a leaf is disturbed
from where it sometime fell.
The death flare rises up
in me like earth’s fire.
It is my one moment of lucidity
before the poem dies out.

With half the light burning
and half the light in shadow
my throat turns blue
and three ash marks
appear on my forehead.
My eyes become stones
on my way through the earth
and my fingers grow roots
that look like other hands.
A snake encircles my spine.
Everything in me comes alive.

Again, he was a youth.
—Ovid, Metamorphoses

Because the winds of change
are pruning the trees
and the last fruit has fallen
I build twig crutches for the birds
and grass wings for the worms,
out of dream scraps
I create a creature
who cannot die.

Then I take these old bones
and my crown of autumn leaves
to the orchard
where I greet Pomona
whose love
will bind me
to the vines of renewal.

In the diction of depiction
cacophony is a crack up.
Babel or Belles Lettres
phrases fracture
and fight against phonics.
The parlance is in the pigeon.
Timelessness spells tmesis.
Magic is in the grammar.
For an old jalopy
jargon has jocular jibes.
The logorrhea of a lingua franca.
Tautologies repeat themselves.
Can a vowel scowl?
Is verbatim verboten?
A zeugma lost a letter and a number.
There’s wisdom in wordplay
and wit in the Wilde.
An oxymoron can explain.
Semantically, syllables
hold the whole together.

A mirror can see without looking.
It can open a closed door
And gather the silence of night
Like a window without stars.
It can span rooms like its own arch,
Appear unexpectedly, like a naked shoulder,
And spill wine across a bed.
It can catch romance at a glance,
Light candles in another room.
Cultivated, it can grow ferns and flowers,
Keep birds or swim with fish.
A serpent can creep across its surface
Like a snake-tattoo on air.
A mirror can show pictures on a mantle
But obscure space for the particular.
A mirror can fold time
Into a blank place of reflection
Or finish a thought like an empty image.

“God has brought me laughter”

A baby’s lips are angelic.
They move like the gentlest of petals,
Like creation nudging creation’s soul.
Whenever an infant smiles
I sense the earliest human gesture
Coming alive through rock.
Whenever a baby smiles
I’ve dipped myself in the water of Lourdes.
My sins are washed away.
I’m as new as a newborn.

The child wants the clay sparrows to fly
He moulds them to live
He creates them to sing
He crafts a simulation
Equivalent to his reflection
Of an earthly heaven

Something in the wind lifts a deer’s head
Something in the air warns the birds
Something beyond the horizon troubles the horses
Our dog paces and the cat clings
Even the ants hurry to seal their nests
All creatures listen to what they know
Only we reject instinct for pride
Only we are alone with our madness

A storm is standing on a needle.
Don’t breathe or move a muscle.
There will be no tomorrow.

The wind is stalled by its own weight.
Don’t open any doors or windows.
Don’t step out into any fields.

The lightning is held in brightness.
Don’t turn on your lights.
Don’t activate even a flashlight.

Along a dark shore
Hail is sealed in stones.
Don’t shatter a glass. Don’t leave.

There was a dog my parents talked about
The neighbour’s dog,
And how when the neighbour died
The dog cried like a child.
They’d never seen anything like it.
He stayed all day at the cemetery
Lying on his owner’s grave
Or in the Sphinx position, guarding time.
He returned home for food and water
Then trundled back at night.
Whenever my parents told the story
My mother would say
Dogs have more heart than people.