lxxxv.

or it chases me harries me across the plains

breaks the sky over my head,

washes out the road, drives me to the hallway

to the safe-room in the gas station

(the world flung upon itself, rises

shrieking and blowing--the radio says

that's about right, for this time of year)

drops a year's worth of water on the hallway between rooms,

lightning cracks above the railing--

the endless rolling plains, sheeting rains, clouds cluster

along the peaks, the freeway awash up to the pass

(fifteen minutes behind, the shack fragile among the green

hillsides--the coffee is free, she gives it to me because I was

am a student--the radio buzzes behind the counter, but she

doesn't know, and I don't, if we're outside the path)

the city is dark, and there is not rest, and no place to

stop--running, and my head is buzzing, is burning

is breaking, past the turn-off--I remember, I nearly slept

and did not sleep there--the last time

(the trucks huddle under the neon, resting, waiting, I

see one on the road, and it is shuddering)

no place is safe and there is nothing free or fine

about the road, heat burning--I am burning

(this is detail work, this is minute adjustment as the winds

blow the wheels--slightly--

off course, this is timing the seconds between headlights

in the wash between the lines, this is the wiper hum and the dance

between this stroke and that, this buffet and that one, the wavering

wheels before me, in convoy)

wavering on the grass--

(the clouds rise and hang over the mountains, the wash is wide

to the feet of the hills--the sage flat, the sky cracks--columns of light

falling to the desert below--this is a hundred miles from anywhere,

I open the window

           and the wind shakes my car off course, towards the ditch)

I am falling, not rising--flattened by the heat and the wrongness

--because it is wrong, all of it is wrong--and there is nothing here

to see, nothing that can help

(the ditches, they say, if it comes upon you--get down in the ditches,

it'll lift your car up and bring it down, break you in it--get out and get down

and get down into the ditches, if it comes upon you

the sirens blow--

and I blow through, before them)

the streets are empty and dark, but the lights are bright--I step down from the

seat, you know this is a nice part of town, and break towards the bushes

the cars rush through the parkway below the trees, and gimlet,

in the spreading orange light, I pass slowly up the street

           and the mesas rise, and the pines waver--hold steady against the rough

green peaks, where the mesas meet the pine--they rise green and gold, riddled

with layers--greenery falling through their chasms,

a peach stand at the base of the cliffs

the lakes deep and blue, the slope roofed villages--and the curving mountain road

with slopes rising steep next to it, and the wildflowers--

by the rest stop--narrow, but smooth--and the broken pavement, the trailers

            huddled where one silent freeway meets another, the souls stalking

the asphalt before the desert, who stays here?--oh, all sorts of people--the

people who are walking cross-country, the people who are biking

cross-county, they come here for reunions--I stop as the first range rises, and

give half a chocolate bar to two Irish cyclists, resting

in the view area--the light gilds the rolling ridges, purple, gold and green--lit

from within, maybe, and the valley blazing as the sun sets,

          back that way, there is no way to compass this immensity, it is beyond

me, behind--back that way, there are worlds upon worlds,

the city rises in haze, the morning heavy and hot--and I have nothing, but I

make something to suit, it is frayed and fading

by noon--I will be gone before night falls again

lxxxiv.

thunder rolls in from the east,
--shatters the night, the sage blows

down, across the slope, too late
it's too late--for most,

the stars fly and spin overhead,
I will find--voices I can barely hear

echo up from the avenue,
to the corner of the room

wheels scrape on the pavement,

the light shifts and blurs, falls gentle
on wood, dust rising above

the faded carpet--mildew leaking from
the walls--hung somewhere

I don't remember, or possibly folded now

(we sacrifice these details when we burn the past,
break it's spine on every second passing)

 the first person I ever trusted said to chase the spring

so I chase it. 

lxxviii.

with kindness--the gravel creaks
the gate sharp,

the night is coming soft,
--too slow

lxxvi.

I watch the pines, but they do not answer

I swear the night is smooth, like butter

they stand above me, full but not solemn
wavering gently, the stars glittering behind them

it will be a long time before I find a night as peaceful as this

whatever god watches over wandering scholars, watch over me

lxxv

love is neither owning nor belonging
who holds space in himself for the existence of another
finds a room for himself, held within another
loves, is loved

lxxxiv.

the birch haloed by the late light
twists and bows,

I will kneel, for a moment

the carpet beckons, so does
the early August night

somewhere far from here, where
the wind blows

sweet, waves the grass, and still
pass it, moving--listen:

rushing in a some kind
of dread line

nothing waits, not for you not
for me, nothing waits--past

the grass, nothing is still, it
moves, regardless,

beyond the night falling, rushing
going down, nothing--nothing

still, you might move too
to see it, regardless

lxxxiii.

a brief glow, the dark becomes dark,
I cannot see--the whole cannot

be recounted, in reflection, there
is too much, the staircase slants

cuts, not twists

at the bottom--who knows? no,
shadow, certain--who can remember:

wet-wood morning, damp mulch, the
moon, high and tight, the hills rise,

they slope, the avenues of trees, impenetrable,
the shuddering emptiness, of the desert--

the light cast over the asphalt, and the lamp
in the window, the third-floor office, who knows--

the boulevard grinding, the sun sunders the dusk
from the day--the sun falls into the cleft, at the

intersection, the crowd falls away, in the hallway,
who can say--the lights hang from the eaves, smoke

rises up into the balcony, on the lee-side the couch
is willing to welcome, the night shivers ice and the

space heater groans, the afternoon sun filters through
the basil, through sparse of roof of leaves over

the bench, the stress unfold endless, and woodsmoke,
sage, rosemary in the morning--the leaves like stars

in the puddles, when it flooded, the sage waves in
the wind, the golden hour and blue dawn, and the

eucalyptus whispers, it doesn't keep its promises--
and who can say, but I think, the storm pipe in

the morning, and the night spiraling into burnt
remnants, and manzanita, and the king oak,

the house falling into the swamp, and the dream
I had, where I walked up to the pepper tree

at the bend, branches hanging low, over the curve,
and the crest, before the sun fell below the trees,

it bathed everything it color, and the moon full
and huge, and low, over the bamboo, over the canal

through the rounded entrance below the foot-bridge,
the chill air, and the scent of garlic, the strange

shivering water below the pier, and in the second story
above the tables, and in the empty, and in the park space

behind the shopping center, where the trees hung wide,
branches low, the plaza before it and the entrance,

and the memory of bamboo, whispering, I think, and
I think it's true that: the time when all stories

could be told at one time, the ice on the plains, and the
bridges frozen, over the delta, the yellow-green northern

fields, and snow piled to the windows, the black branch
against the grimy cinder-block walls, smoke and foreign

words, twice over, and once again--the plants on the sill,
the door hung open, the porch as the light came running

down the ridges, the loping canyons, the oven warm--
it scents the room, the room like a coffin, like a den, like

a closet, like a cell--like a cave, the road along the coast,
the sea of lights, moving, shot through the valley--the,

and I think, it is true, it is certain--bricked in buildings,
and light hanging low in the dogwoods, the unbearable heat

it is true--that the time when all stories were one, could be
told at one time--the age of viable explanation,

that time is over, all stories were one, but that--
--it's alright, that time is over, it's alright.