... (xx).

the crickets ring softly, under

the masses of leaves, flutter brightly

while the cars wind through the shadows

crow cracks, but cannot hurry, the morning

mirror

well, all you sharded mirrors
who scatter the sky among you
who catch the moonlight, gleaming
in the corner of the room
and all the stars are fixed, if burning
and the moon, full and wide, and glowing
are either dead or burning
don't know the small, dark glory
of being undone

The Skinner's Psalm

Let my words rise
like the smoke from the stub in my hand
I have walked through thick grass
soaked up to the knees
with a load of dead things
across my shoulders
and the hum of the crickets
mocked their empty plushness
and the light glistening on the water
mocked the sun's gleam on fur
and the dried skins seemed brittle
against the damp beneath my feet
now, for once, I set down my burden
to peer up into the clear darkness
the clouds are far grander
ranging across the sky
still, I think there's some value
in the quickness of smoke
as it rises over the steps
and twirls off into the night

... .

and god bless your out-flung wings
I swear you threw the sky into my face
while you were passing
I swear I could not evade the question
as my eyes followed in your wake

dry

my soul aches, this morning
like skin tightening around a cut
the cicadas buzz in the trees
and the air hangs, dry and light
the light falls, like dust, between the shadows
whenever I reach into myself
I feel leaves and twigs crackling under the bushes

I walk, parched and dusty
and no water slakes my thirst
but leaves me chapped and itching
I rest on my frame
like leather, scraped and cured
like paper, dried and contorted
hung like a mask on the wall

eh.

born and born and born
again, and how many lives
will you live?
the world the world and the world
dies every night and in
every season.
and hopping from
grave to grave
how can you hope to go
beyond springing?
it may be that
you live in the leap
it may be that
you are learning flight, unanticipated
by the lazy maws, yawning below you
that even the leaves
may not notice you
crashing through them
that one day, you may shock them
altogether, by missing the ground

the greater glory

--stranger—O, stranger
O, walker in a strange country
were you exile, were you alien
when your legs first straightened, against the ground?
--who carries the hunger borne of plenty
who felt the gnawing in the gut
and gnashed the empty air
and you cannot fill it with hands
nor make yourself fat on faces
--when all flesh is as your flesh

and there is not rest, in this world
where only your soul is your home
only the falling darkness of sleep
and rising under the heavy weight of day
wouldn’t you sweat
or fall to nothing
but loose folds of flesh?

but no lazing—
for the grass tells you you are not grass
and you can give the sun
nothing, who do not rise to its light
who do not grow stronger
in the brightness

O, you—unaccounted traveler
among the trees
whose leaves rustle briefly
in your passing
O, you—who were born to be weary
who were born in pieces
and sundered, pass lightly
through the great play of the light
and the world’s brutal, grinding
and lush, humming exultation
and the stone under your feet
and the wind in your hair, and another
back-lit, whose shadow touches
your knees and who makes—the sun’s
crowing tragic fall, their own
--these things, and only, are yours
so hold them, loosely
as you are passing
in the greater glory.