Never so grateful as under sapphire skies
What with apple trucks and golden sunsets

If the gods can cleanse themselves in field fires
Why can’t I

Even though builders drive in their year-nails
There’s a lingering to the changes

A reluctance in the leaves to fall
And in the birds who depart

In the conservation of angular momentum
A slowness to the glowing hours

Almost like a space passes into autumn
Into which we turn a vacant look

What’s in your basket of shadows?
I have fruit from the orchard
And tomatoes from the garden.
Where are you going
With your basket of shadows?
To feed the hungry and heal the sick.
What else do you have
In your basket of shadows?
I have fresh bread and fish
And a multitude of miracles.
Can we look in your basket?
You may look, but to nonbelievers
The basket will appear empty.
They looked, it was empty and full,
It was a basket of shadows.

Light shines in darkness.
Can darkness overcome light?
Is night the birthplace of dreams
Or the grave of nature?
Let’s hope for the big death,
For all the lamps to burn out,
For the annihilation of ego
And the pure, deep, sunless
Entirety of death’s blessing
In ever-during darkness
Comfort us to forget
What we have here seen and known,
Here crafted and endured.
The nightmare of consciousness
To live through it again.