Nature

An Elegy of Leaves

Hours and hours,
and hours
into the woods—

through the rainfall,
the sunpierce,
the pine and spruce;
off the trail
of the acorn and ash,
of the prairie lily,
of light and water dancing
on needles and leaves;

past the hidden spring,
yawning cavern,
past limestone spires
and granite punctured
up from the heart of the earth;
in the forest and veldt
of the snake and the lark,
and the ram and the elk.

Your lungs are thirsty,
your heart, hungry,
your mind, tired—no?

And so we pass
into the land of the gods
of life and death.

But what else to be said?

What else,
as we tread perdition
through our doctrine of the night,
seeking a horizon reckoning?
What verdict given?

Shall I say,
“hold your sins & dreams
as you would your breath,
hold them now
until the coming dawn!”

?

No.
It is all ashen
and ground to dust.

Even if you cannot see
that the flame
I carry in my heart
could burn this place clear,
I still must lay it
before this living altar.

Listen.
Birds are singing in the thicket.

There is more music,
deeper in,
deeper still.
There hums a resonation.

What else, then?
What else to offer beyond this—
this sad
and staggering presumption
that I can somehow relay
this sanctification
to you
in words,
as though I have the skill,
and the right?

For I am no priest
and this place
has no need of one.

Here then,
let me lay down a permanence
for you,
and in full artistic grace,
describe instead
the peace
and eternity of this place:

I wish you were here.

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I have offered up my lamentations
out of the dust of Eden
and painted them into the night.

I have trodden stars underfoot
and crushed them
into the wine of singularities.

(so my younger self told me in a dream,
reaching forward in the temporal
as I now enter the embrace of the world
and age into my slavery)
I’d pay good money to hear what yours told you.

Shall we build a fire then, in this desolation,
and brand me with the aspect of shadow?
How shall we brand you?

If Pride were ground into powder,
I suspect it could then be an anointing
upon this corruption;
perhaps even an atonement-
simple enough, yes?

Enough.

Show me then-
come, show me,
while there is still some serenity;
let us examine your engines of the dark
and the nightmare-fuel within
(are you watching closely?
energy equals matter
times the speed of light squared).

Drift you now to the far shores,
sleep, and dream,
drift with your own permission-
for a song of this magnitude radiant
shall fly only to constellations;
was meant only for the season of sowing.

Do you not see how alive you are?
And do we have an according then, you & I?

For as I see all hands open
in these songs of light and dark,
and music woven out of silence cleansed
in the cloudwalk ascendant,
purified in the cosmotic night,
washed in the blood of the earth;
so do I see you dare to direct your gaze
up.

Now
take my lantern
and I’ll hold your hymns-

say it’s a good trade.
(it’s a good trade)

Behold then:
the field opening verdant in its laughter,
bathed in blossomscent,
how even the black dirt and red clay
sing under the sun
in their rushing to meet the mountains;

for winter will come again,
and still all will sing,
still all will sing.
Come,
for the river is deep, and wide;
the water clear, and cool.
I tell you my grace and yours was bartered between us
in these bending waves of wildwheat.

Have you forgotten?
This is an accord, in fact,
with the song aureate in all things.

I know you can hear it.

The dark washes off so easily,
so easily, my love,
so easily.

There was an old father in the desert,
a long time ago,
(have you heard this one?)
who stretched his hands toward heaven,
and told his disciple
as his fingers turned to dancing fire,

“If you will,
you can become all flame.”

Thanotic

This is the final note,
this is where it all ends,
this is where it all goddamn ends.
And ends.
And ends.

This is the song divergent,
this is the souls’ reaping exigent;
this is the last pace before bloodlet-

ironscent tang in the dust
mingled,
oh yes.

This is the echochord of a sunset lightbreak;
this is your eulogy,
this is where you die.

This is where you
take
one
more
step-

for flame breeds fresh ash
and ash breeds a fertile ground.

Keep watching.

Exhalant

Stop. Shut it all out,
if you can.
I promise you won’t die.

Even the sun must set,
ships must be moored,
dogs come into the house,
oxygen and carbon dioxide exchange;

and garments of the day fall
so the blankets of night
can cover the dreams
of 100,000,000 minds.

The world wishes you not to sleep, nor to rise
(what a pitiful thing that cannot make up its mind)…

I can, though.

So kiss me as you will:

like a calculation of space
enumerating the differential
under the curve,

like a bonfire
writhing
in the apocalypse,

or even, if you prefer,
like the owl flies-
hunting softly in the dark.

Inheritance

If you go out into the land,
towards the wild, into the realm of no realm
with nothing but your own gospel,
as a disciple would:

First, unplug your devices. Shut them off.
I’m serious- put all that shit in your desk.
It’ll make you deaf and I’m, unfortunately,
speaking from experience.

Because then, if you’re careful,
if you’re quiet,
you have at least a chance to recover
what you’ve lost.

(if you’re alone, good
if you’re not, so be it
if you have a little one with you, hold their hand)

-listen-

Green things are sprouting from the ground in song
and voices of thunder gather on the horizon.

now this is where you say

“Shhh.
Close your eyes.
Can you hear them?
Can you hear them?”

What are they saying?
Can you hear them?

Pioneers

Do I count myself more grateful at 12,
or at 32?

Is the pressing of time like water against a dam?

Oh, but I can drift backwards
into the fullness of the ripening earth
beneath my boots,
the rank tang of ammonia in the barn,
the scent of aging hay in the sun,
the heavy shunt of horse-breath
clouding my face
under the stars of an early spring.

One day, before you die,
you may stop worrying and know love.
So- will I emerge more of a contradiction at 32,
or at 52?

(but
there is a hunger now-
for the trophy, not the food)

I find I’m beating the claws of this world off,
taking note of what bleeds most,
standing aghast
at everyone’s rushing,
at everyone’s talking,
the endless documentation of ourselves
and all we claim to care for.

Do you all fear death that much?

Are you running from the dark?
Or from the light?

a diet high in clocks increases your risk of heart attack
talk to your doctor

Ah, well.
Hopefully, at 72,
I won’t find in me the demon-
and
I am called Legion;
but perhaps,
if I’m lucky, instead,
something of Whitman-
and
I contain multitudes.

Dearly Beloved

We are gathered here today
to mark the passing of death;

Death-of-the-Inside,
the clinging fear
and the dénsed darkening,
nurtured since birth
that says

“No.
Not good enough.”

Mark well what you’ve missed
and what remains,
what you thirst for
and even what’s flayed your soul at night.
For this is all a kind of prayer.

So then stay with me awhile
after these words,
and we’ll lay our flowers and shadows
under the arms of the earth.

The tears of the air
tamp the ground,
erasing even our footprints,
and there will be no markers or epitaphs.

Say it now, and say you all so.

This dawn I sense beating draws close;
so I’ll join you at the wake,
when the clock strikes sunlight.

Prowl

I ride on the edge of the night,
where sacred-looking things arise
from power lines and signals of the civil-

doesn’t the wolf come sometimes
to the edge of the city?

So I feel alive and electric in the neon,
merely from contact and rhythm;
we are wired for this.

claws click on sidewalk pavement

Yet
I still need the full-breath,
the long-hale up from the blood,

the consonation

and synchronizing hum of your body
rising from the earth,
dripping with mud,
calling to the darkling beyond dream.

Skirting the trail,
sowing and conjuring then I traverse time and space;
it smells wet and rank-sweet in here,

but this hunt
isn’t really a hunt,
is it?

I can hear you
from my bones out
to the stars.

I wander home, alone in the descent of sacred things;
I wander home, alone,
riding on the edge of the night.

Canis Lunaris

Why?

Why does she run,
always out of reach,
twisting halfway
in a leaping dodge through the fresh powder
and over the melting riparian edge
with that sly and challenging smirk,
that furrowed brow?

All day, I thought it
-play-, thought
-pack hierarchy-, thought
-willful child-,

which I accepted, of course.
Leashes are to be used sparingly.

Should I have even been asking?

It only occurred to me
after some time had passed-
she was trying to show me the

(secret)

and that I, being only human,
couldn’t follow all the way.