cxvxi.

if the night lingers on,

and it will

and you find yourself on
the edge of things,

in between worlds, drawn
back, the lines on the map
sharp

cut like wire, through the air,
and here and there

cut like glass

two plates passing by each
other, clear 

except for the blood
at the line, 
along the edges and 
flowing, in rivulets

on the land under them,
it's the edge of one thing
and another,

that makes the difference
between blood and water,
people bleed
it matters because

they can look around
and up,

and it's the grimmest joy
of the darkest
impulse to turn their 

eyes to water, to
trap their souls
in mud,

but, bone is rock,

and eyes are 
made of water, but

only as transmission 
line, without coordination,
they 

easily escape to rain,
slip across the land
and fly into

cloud-cover, beyond
any hand,
and bone is hard and sharp
before it goes to sand--

--it does not go quietly,

and any hand raised over,
dust and shards and water,
raised high over

a plain, flattened to mud
and dust--will flash

and fall to cloud-cover 

eventually, 

even if it's not soon enough,

water does not disappear
even asf it flows.

cxvx.

drive the moon into the ground,
and it will spin and skitter, along the cliff-face,
and not touch the water,
wavering,

to drive the shadow out,

chase it around the corners, falling
through the trees, it will
flash behind you, high on the slope,
then flash out at the turn,

as the stars spread across the valley
below, spinning in and out 
of vision, between the tree trunks
and rise high

to track you, through the grass
rolling along the river-line, 
to rest high in the dark
above the light at the corner

cxvix.

a hall of rooms, strung
across the valley,
through its sides

sinking under the 
riverbed,
vaulting from the
bedrock, into

boulders, rising into
the sky, buried,
in the flaking sandstone,

falling off
the canyon-sides.

high and silent, over the sage
brush and scrub, 
roofs rising nearly as high

as the cave roof, but the ladders
gone, fallen into
the wash, sticks in the stream-bed
and rivulets--something

happened here, 
flags fly, off a laundry line,
strung between piled rock,

there's a garden in the scree,
light filtering down,
through a gap in the vaulted
rock,

across the carpet
onto the altar,

and a net of passages, beneath the 
valley floor,
let out in places
no one knows all of i,

traveling in the dark,

maybe sometimes in the reeds,
sometimes along the tumbled
rocks, in the stream-bed

ground cracked, and grasses
waving, rippling

up the slopes--far across the dunes
deep in the earth,

with the light coming down in
shafts, or carved into
the mountain side

roofs tumbling down the cliff-face,
plazas squared to stairs,
leading down 

to roofs, 
libraries hidden in the rock-face,
light breaking and falling
into the dark, 

and rising
high under the ground,
above the street,

and somewhere else, terraces
rising and falling, 
across the ridge-line,

cupped by the earth,

yards hanging off a cliff,
roads plunging like rivulets

windows lit and vines
swinging,
in a high valley

towns scrawled and looping
across the foothills, open
bright and lush, green
and shadow

some places didn't need to bury
but could dance with
the rock instead,

sprawling over the ground

someday, us in the deep,
high places will come
out and over

to throw streets and rooms
over the hills,
watch the moon rise
from below

cxvx.

she falls across the sky
       arms waving, fingers stretched
to rake the clouds

on the verge,
     around the moon

the thunder stirs, somewhere, south
      in the valleys,

shuddering grasping, flailing
       the lights flashing in the west
halo the ridgeline

she breaks her spine
on the peaks,

shatters and breaks, since
she will not be shorn,
       
      clatters in shards, down
the ravine,

shrieking and clawing, down
in the eastern valley, 

catching streetlights in her hands
and tearing them, clawing
the earth, 
         
            barreling through the
powerlines, till they
snap, then fall, limp and
still waving

          over the freeway, throws
the cars against the slope,
howling,

         and calling, under she's
thundering, and the valley

cracks along its spine

---

so she catches the windows
shattering,
         in her hair, glittering

streaming across the wash
over the far halls

the cement cracks, in the 
shape of her mouth,
        and the earth cracks

in the shape of her teeth,
into the shadow
       of her bones,

shaped by the unseen
unnoticed,
       the silence and the
weight,
         choking,
the pressure

grinding down,
meant to still, to bind
to break in the shape
         of a hand, of a
bent palm, of an
armature,

of the ground, a pile of
skin, and a stain,
spreading into the roots
to feed the soil,

what cannot break
goes underground,
       and further,

until it wears the rocks,
wears the roots, 
            or unweaves
them,

cracks the ground,
slowly,

      in the shadow of
the sky, when the sky
breaks,

      and crackles, and
comes rushing over the
water, 

    falling over the slopes,
thundering, 

then the asphalt will break
and go flying, with the cars
tumbling,
       like gravel in the broken
waters, screaming and howling

until they are finally streaming
towards the sky

     










         

benediction

pine and wood-smoke
sage and sawdust
the old year died without trying

in March, I said a prayer over the valley
I asked to keep it safe and free

the houses flow in rows and ridges
up to the base of the mountains
rising high above them

skew and idiosyncratic, 
in tangles and piles
washed up here, in waves

places like this at the edge of something
should stay free

the spring night is purple, it glows on 
the snow-pack, and in the aspen leaves

it was like the end of a  dream
it was a good dream--I held onto it for a long time
through the dark nights between then and now

now the world is moving

the gaps open up in the day again,
and the nights are unsteady
one day, I'll walk through a break
in the hedgerow

--between one hour and the next

and walk into a different dream, and
a different order of history

if you walk through the long dark
and sit through the garish night
if you watch the stars rise, lonely
and see the sun-rise far from home

if the streets are unfamiliar
but you find yourself around unknown corners
through hedges, under walls

then this is for you--stay clear and steady
quick-sighted, be nimble
through the long night--

I stand for you--
and may you stand for me also
until the night passes

and the sunrise glows softly
on the hills again