Writing

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.

Bailaro

Once, a while ago, when the rhythm took me,

(sorry, sorry, sorry,
lo siento, mea culpa;
have you seen all the ways
we learn to apologize
for being alive?)

it was Los Lobos,
and it was Spring,
and I was in the kitchen,
and I was told to stop screwing off.

The next day, I drove past a graveyard.

Most days now,
I’m guilty of screwing off.
(especially where rhythm is concerned)

Lo siento.

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 occured 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.

Vernalsong

In case you ever again enter
the winter of forgotten things,

listen-

You are of the transcendent.
You are of the wild and hopeful,
of the beautiful and terrifying Light.
You are of the rising storm.

You are of the running herd,
and hawk on the wing,
and fin cutting the waves,
and the pack-howl at night.

You are cloaked in honor,
you are of the ardent-hearted,
and the sword and the plough
and of the green, growing things.

You speak for those who have no voice.

You are worthy, and I am worthy,
and every single thing is worthy,
and it was deemed so
in the forges of fading suns
containing every single atom
of yourself
and myself,
aeons ago.

In case you ever forget-
are you listening?

Words

What can I say about you
that wasn’t already said
by Monet’s brush,
by Gibran’s pen,
by Carter, opening Tutankhamen’s tomb,
by Einstein’s math,
by my mother’s hands,
or by my dog’s tongue?

What can I possibly describe about you
that wasn’t already given to me
in the absolution of the wild,
that wasn’t felt by my sister
on the first horse she mounted,
by my father
the first time he wandered the woods alone?

What on earth
can my heart not say these days
as it pulses fragments of dead stars
to my eyes,
that I might turn them
on the night sky, itself
half-made of dead stars?

What can you show me
that is not in itself
a miracle?

And what can I say to you
that does not come out
“we are here for the space of a breath,
beloved,
and no more”?

Ámō

I wish I had answers.
I really do.

I wish I had the secret
to a good night’s sleep,
or that I knew what you mean by
“the best hiking trail”;

I wish I knew how 
to look the devil in the eye,
how to visit all 100 places the magazine says to 
before we leave this world,
how to eject the tape in your head;
or the one in mine;

how to learn the language 
of the horse in summer,
or the wolf in winter,
or how to dance
like they do in the movies;

how to exhude the proper passion,
how to fix the brokenness,
or at least clear the wreckage;
and, perhaps,
why folks bring swords to the dinner table.

(There is a reason, you see,
why I’m on one knee 
when talking to dogs,
or children. 
Do we not all in some way bow
to wisdom and grace?)

So, yes, I wish I knew the secret
of the method
of the madness
of the song
of the soul
of the fire 
and the rain;
or that of your your finely-gathered pain,
which is a gift only to be offered.

Ah. Never mind me.

Here.

I found a piece of driftwood
while walking.

It’s yours.

Gnarled, 
old knots and curves,
scent of earth in spring;
water and wood at last
consummating their affair.

(How else do I explain that,
to me,
your whisper is thunder?)

Praésperō

She was sitting on the couch,
dying.

Well, not really dying, per se.

She was staring out the window
at the darkness fallen across the land.

“I hate winter.”

She shivered, even with the blanket.

The dog wandered over,
hopped up,
sat down next to her.
Opened its jaws, grinning.

{Hey.}
“What.”
{Know what I like about winter?}
“What’s that.”
{Spring’s just around the corner.}
She sighed.
“I suppose.”
She stared out the window again.

{Hey.}
“Yeah?”
{Let’s go run around and eat snow.}

She raised her eyebrow.
The dog raised one back.
{Please?}

“OK. Come on.”

{Cool. I’ll wait for you at the door.}

She grabbed her coat.

{Oh. My. God.}
“What now?”
{A small piece of bacon on the floor.
See! Like I told you
when I woke you this morning!
Best day ever!}

Fídō

Have you seen the mud
streaked across 
the hardwood floor?

Or, wait-

Did you watch the cat 
sleeping in the barn?

I see.

Surely, then, 
you’ve been tucked in
by the night sky?
You’ve seen the thunderheads 
crying and spitting lightning
so they could wash the face of the earth?

Well, maybe you’ve met
the white-haired woman
I spoke with in the shop-
who told me of classrooms
and busses full of protesters,
and of her husband, long-gone,
she who outlived 
her mother, father, brothers, sisters?

The one who looked at me, smiling,
who stared then out the window
with a face like a child’s,
and said,

“I swear,
life
is just…
amazing!”

?

Alright, then.

(He waves the pamphlet in the air. 
The world is ending.
“Do you believe?!?”

“I do,” I say,
“yesterday I took my dog to the park,
and stared into the eyes of God,
and was licked by the Buddha’s tongue.”)

The Most Convenient Definitions

“Battling your demons,”
they call it.
Fighting the monsters.
Taming the beast.
Or, perhaps,
rebuking the Devil.

You must cleanse yourself.
You must take this pill.
You must do yoga.
You must read this book.

You must.

I suppose I can’t lie;
shedding the past is good.

However…

do you remember?
Think back.

Before you were told what to fear.
Before you were told what to hate.
Before you were told what was wrong with you.
Before you were told who to be.

I’ll tell you true,
cross my heart, hope to die-

’cause I seem to recall a boy,

whose demons brought him food,
whose monsters came out from under the bed 
and gathered ’round for story time,
whose beasts ran with him
past the high school lockers,
and who walked the prairies and woods
with Lucifer and Jesus both;

we shared Canadian whiskey,
Dominican cigars,

and harmed not ourselves 
nor any soul,

traipsing the beat
in the heart of creation.