Isle of Mind

Just as the Manx man thinks
To himself, "traa dy-liooar," a gong
Chimes, calling the monks

To robed attention and away
From their desultory prayers.
There is time, to be sure,

But only in the sense of something
Else in the place of what was always
Just a placeholder being meditated.

Violone

Irrational happiness
And dreamed serene contentment
In the middle of nonsense
With no hope of improvement,
No prayer, no plan for escape,
These are the finest moments
In the long fall through nothing

To nowhere thoughts can follow,
No place you yourself can be.
A pianist interviewed
On playing with dream partners
Said music feels like flying,
"If you can get there." Let's try
Flying, getting there or not.

Help

Why is it so rarely really
Comforting to know the truth? Why

Are we more likely to prefer
A variety of stories

Served with sidecars of arguments
About which stories are truer,

Even when the truth is simple,
Knowable, and painfully clear?

A few weeks ago a woman died
In the hamlet we inhabit,

In a pretty place with a view
Of beautiful rocks and sunsets,

And her body was found three days
Later, crumpled, frozen solid

At the bottom of her porch steps.
Stories differ on how she died.

Fragments from Small Hours

In the dark of a star's shadow
The unsinkable, single tune
Of a sunny day in a meadow
Spent dreaming with the likes of you
Brings back the whole gold afternoon.

On the deck of another riddle
Strolls the unthinkable, shrinking hope
Of ten thousand days left to whittle
Into words, lacking songs, for boats
Floating down dawn's heliotropes.

Big Chunk of Something

"When _we_ think of poetry, most of us think of lyric poems, printed texts in which rhythmical monologists express strong feelings as they struggle through problems to achieve moderately satisfying resolutions. Yet for Aristotle . . . poetry was not a thing . . . but rather an activity, a 'making.'"

Experienced awareness revels
In the gentle sensorium
Of a sumptuous bed. Whatever.

Keep going. The groundhog
That I was woke up for once
Too early to see his shadow
And limped around his house
Naked in front of all the windows,
Feeling tired and shy but bad.
That was a past that is what
It never was. Here we go.

The sun, like Aristotle, is out
To describe every kind of making,
Good and crappy, except this
Or that he never knew about
And therefore never saw. Always,
In the brightest most brilliant
Minds or sunlight, there is shade
Somewhere, even if only on the other
Side of things, a kindness
As well as an inevitable confusion.

My wife leaves all the doors ajar,
The caps on her shampoo bottles
And toothpaste tubes off and open.
Because of this, because of
My wife, my life is always open.
Her heart is the Colorado Plateau,
Her arteries its long rivers,
Always open, even in canyons,
Even when she wanders the dark
At four in the morning, searching
For the sleep that left her long ago.

And I'm pouring a glass of dark red
Something while our toddler draws
With washable markers henna colors
On bare feet, arms, and hands. Haze
Settles around our windows, clocks
Click, Sarah tries to nap on the sofa.
What are we going to do with this
Who has nothing to do with us?

"I got a lollipop! Looks like an onion!
I got a big, big sucker!" sings out
Savage, the burgundy-painted one.

Eagles on Highway

And we're not warning you again.
Keep your hands inside the car
At all times. Do not offer mice
Or other small mammals or fish
From your windows. This is not

Much of a joke, nor very reliable
An assertion. You may pass this way
A thousand times without once
Finding this true. This is not
A happy thought. This is a sign.

Fog and the Dog

We took so many pictures.
There is no other reason
Why we'd remember that day.
To tell the truth, despite them,
We still don't. I scrutinize
The screen of my computer
As the rafts of them unscroll,

Showing views of the valley
In moving fog banks, the moon
Overhead, snow and sunset,
Three years ago, different house,
Different hopes, jokes, and worries ,
No thought of family yet,
Just the dog we're dancing with.