Hidden within my life
There are two deaths
One I have forgotten
And one I’ll never know
And between
There is a road
That will take me home

Just near my childhood home
used to be a19th century farmhouse
but all that was left
was blackened cinder blocks
of an apparent fire
and the apple tree beside them.
Field grasses and wildflowers
overran the foundation
and it was where I could sit
out of sight and lost in time,
spellbound by summer,
while on the grass tips,
the house of the sun
floated like an apparition
scented by the burning past.

Whoever created this art
Must have sensed the zeitgeist
Its imperfections are stunning
The more you look at it
The more flaws appear
And the more it appeals
To our distorted ideals
And submissive aesthetics
Tethered to culture
Whenever I see it
I’m reminded how near
We have remained
To our own failings
Our sublime dereliction
Impoverishing poverty
Denying earth’s dying
Praising the monstrous
Believing in art and in others

“Poetry heals the wounds inflicted by reason.” Novalis

“Somewhere in the world,”
my poet friend liked to say,
“there’s a stone that wants to fly,”
and I want to believe
there’s a stone that wants to fly,
maybe some magic stone
that doesn’t know it’s falling,
or like the Rosetta Stone
that doesn’t know its speaking,
or beach stones skipping waves,
arrowheads lean with hunger,
David’s stone and malachite,
moonstones to fly by night,
pumice clouds in the sky,
all stones that want to fly.
It could also be any stone
you happen to pick up
and weigh against life,
tell me it’s not flying
and I’ll know you’re a liar.

The sky wears monks’ robes
and walks with bowed head
but you can’t tell if it’s faith
or melancholy that pervades.
Thunderstorms as expected.
Days wear shaded garments.
Deep night follows deep light.
Raindrops drip from leaves
like birdsong turned to stone.
Even a butterfly struggles
to lift the light, flower to flower.

There’s something about this spring day,
it’s like a choregraphed stage production
of what spring in spring is made
with a comparable mise-en-scène
and singing of sylph chorus,
rain clouds adding distant drama,
sunlight streaming from the rafters,
the performance of a lifetime
from this cast of leaves and flowers
dancing to their birth,
swaying to their being in being,
and bowing to their end, as in love’s future.

Clockwork

A plum dropped into the brim-full
hour of summer
and to keep the edge of time
along the edge of space
fate rippled over the barrel head.

Moon Pearl

I reached my arm down into night
and raised up a moon pearl
which spilled back into the barrel
so that the heavens could hold a mirror.

Round Words

To hold the rain
the barrel must be saturated.
To be full of love
the body must be saturated.

Gyrosystem

The barrel sinks into soil,
grows roots, attracts lichen and moss,
insects and birds, bats and snakes,
and at the height of summer
morning glories entangle the barrel,
creep over the rim
and grow back out
blossoming wildly
like life twice born.

Tondo

Sometimes hanging grapes and leaves
are reflected in the convex mirror
of a brimming barrel, and deeper down
an idiotic Bacchus face looked up
having drowned drinking the barrel.