History before a beginningis the end of a previous beginning history’s a tangled skeinnot a straight-laid thread it’s full of knots of strands of varied weightsand counter-weights of light and lead when teased apart we learnwho today has lost and who is winning who is floatingwho is falling who is free, or who is haulingsomeone…

Invisible Disassembling the invisiblehas its own mathematics, different rules apply,the process has its special calculusbecause the unseen is huge and impudent,powerful and odd When we were dumb and ignorantthe spirit wind would startle us, would frighten us,shatter shelters, split the sky with light—unseen, but real, we named it God The invisible has popular cachet,being as…

In the beginning was the word —John 1:1 Entreaty send me a poem that hunkers on hauncheswatching for the day to begin, that waitsfor the right word to come with the sunduring the last hours of the night-watchwhen all are asleep except the watcherand there is still rustling in the underbrush,the wordless sounds of something…

Again My father, at the kitchen table, in a rare expression of mystery,said, I think life is a cycleBut he was not a mystical man to me,nose to the grindstone he groundday after day, pressedby incessant work, boundto contingencieslike Sisyphus to his stonelinearly, but uphillin his black boots and sockshis blue shirt and pantscinched with…

Future Self I imagine my inner workingwill be more playful then than now,less attention to survival paid,finally getting to the sparkling black hole of day,a moment of arrival: of at-once knowing andunknowing Tao. I was told by a monk who’d kept silence for yearsof when his inner dialog disappeared,when his chattering selves came to accordand…

Hummingbird Acetylene The turquoise flame of a hummingbird’s head is a blazing torch of acetylene burning, as when my father put a welding tip to steeljoining parts of his world with the bluegreen flamehe held between this hummingbird burns in afternoon lightat the mouth of a flower in god’s machine jabbing her tip at a…

Dignity. …. I sit still in the garden…. falling away…. among Pat’s lilies falling too …. hummingbird…. tiny as a big bee…. red-head harvesting…. hovers, not falling, but…. falling too, around a star bud…. also falling at the fringe…. of a galaxy freefalling…. among what? …. hummingbird slingshots to hydrangea…. impossible wings against falling…. invisibly against falling…. determined as one oppressed…. not to fall, or to fall…. of her own choosing…. by her…

First Love I’m fallingfor youfalling falling the ground’s given wayI’m tumbling sprawlingspace space —my mind my heart, my heartis in a parabolic arcin a plane devoid of gravity and time I float I floatI’m in a massless boatsailing sailing the truth of gravity is failingthe sadness of abrupt conclusions goneI’ve come apart, I’m flailingflailing up…

Birds on a wire are made a melody Synchronous the universe is synchronousits beauties overlaptunes are made of birds on wiresLeonard Cohen taught us thatand now another gives this song to us nature plays its songs for usits riffs are made of daysits melodies are made of suns and moons,of particles and wavesthat are each,…

“Did you like your father,” my friend asked? The Tongues of His Black Boots Say as my father sleeps the world goes onhis black boots are by the doorhe left them there unlacedthe right run down at the heelthe left toe scuffedhis blue shirt hangs on a hookwrinkled below the belt linewhere every morningits tails…

“Faith is a fine invention…”…. ……… —Emily Dickinson, 56 Different Choice faith is a fine invention,a spade to shovel doubt awayand bury apprehension,keeping disbelief at bayit sidelines skepticism,confining incredulity to a boxit becomes a soothing salveor cell with locks faith may boost the probabilityof inattention and final answersdiscounting anything that challenges its endsso that, faithfully,…

Who's Urizen In William’s crisp mandala Urizen asymmetrically stoops Laying duality on the world, cleaving philosophers’ minds, inspiring theologians to settle scores, he undoes the unity of chaos splitting it to bits like chips to feed the dogs of wars Reaching down, this buff, man-like self curiously in his prime with old head coiffed white…

Posterity: ………… all that follows every generation since Oldowan man chipped obsidian and flintto make a stone ax to lay open the skull of an adversaryfor food or turf, honing technique until at this end he’s chipped them into ICBMs the inner stuff of blind surgethe inclination of instinct down a slippery slope …………the popped…

Un About snow glittered to the wavelength of a streetlamp on swells and bellies of the yard slopedown across a white savannah from asphalt to nirvana at a window I stood looking out forever in a momentin today or yesterday or mañanaenmeshed, engaged, rapt and un about senseless to the dialogic loop ever playing in…

What God Says I place before you a bowl of evidencebut will never make you eat Chance is what you’re up against,and the only is of me you’ll meet You can pray until your tongue expiresand never know my heart’s desire I roll the future out mysteriously,you trace my trail of crumbs through mires You…

Tiny Megalomaniacs.being goodyou take responsibility for everythingand credit for nothing,otherwise you’re sliding downthe slippery slope at an accelerating clipuntil you’re taking credit for everythingand responsibility for zip just a short slip down that slopeyou’ve already sloughed goodnessmany times like snake skinfor the sake of some small gainsome little leverage, some edge, some inelbowing out some…

Say Something Obvious The geometry of moonlight is triangularIts pallid glow is whole, homogeneous and crisp,never granular. Moon, mating with Suncries out like a bell, her rings are ecstatic and annular Under a condensing cloud you’ll be singing in the rainif you carry a tune while following your blissIf it falls upon the skin of…

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know What I was walling in or walling out…………….. —Robert Frost Safe I'm safeI've locked myself inYou're with me and safe too Through the barred window of this boxthe world has changed, grown more lovely I savor its barred beauty moreas I recall it close at hand…

Picking the World Apart When Lao Tzu(or the composite of poets grouped under his name)talked of Tao, The Way, he said, “If you talk about it, it’s not Tao.If you name it, it’s something else” I don’t think he was being metaphysical He suggested something practical which,if taken at face value, ought to be paid…

Show Moon look out your window the moon is hugebut not bigger-than-life, smaller than thatthough big enough to make life take a look,to admire its yellow flatness with hint of rougeupheld in a mosh-pit of trees, their naked limbsa dark mesh across a field upon a sky of blue-grey steelwhich, as long as nights last…