What is this thing I must sing to?
I stand up, sit
Down, then
Stand again.
My mind a fan blade pivoting
In patches in sunlight
And wind,
Scent of peony.
I wait for the bird half
Of my body
To reveal itself,
That sliver of food I carry
In my heart to feed the dead.
As if their leaving
Might finally mean something.
As if that bluebird
Coming down
Out of the pine
Might finally stall
At the feeder’s edge.
One cloud inlaid on the river
Like polished marble.
Light fraying to fading
Horse-shapes
Between the trees.
If one eye must quit its listening
And release its silver,
Then that wren is still there
On the lawn
Lashed down by ropes
And strings of wind,
Quietly feeding.
On the way out when I walked
To some arbitrary vantage,
A spot in the yard;
On the way back
(When I leaned down
And touched a poppy)
To the same.
Wet and tufted, unwounded.
I have taken for granted too long
The tongue’s relationship
To the lip,
So long
A saint might be teased
Out of it.
A mirror carried from darkness.
Then tremble, then seed.
Then then.
Time leaping forward just
For the thrill of it.
Logic like crystallized gypsum.
We sit: the morning and I.
Consciousness: our sleeve of honey.
Glass heart, glass eye, glass
Tongue, glass spine.
I can’t tell—
Of Buddha’s two deaths—
Which to prefer—
The one with poison
And a rush of blood
Or the one tamed
With willingness and grace.
Daylight sharpens
Its immaculate knife.
How does a bird know
It’s been lifted?
How know we have cheated sweetness
(And/or death)
Out of muscle and burning spoke?
