The Rabbit Prayer

                             We sense a holy presence

                             from inside the fur, staring through
                             another shimmering darkness.  Beyond is
                             a midnight curtain of enormous eyes,
                             a looming family portrait of old trees
                             who sway peacefully beneath our moon.
                             Unseen friends sleep silently in the
                             palm of other hollow dens. 
                             The pups maintain a mix of sleep
                             and communal sheltered breathing
                             in a space no larger than a
                             human's cupped hands.
                             This is how we pass the night:
                             the overflowing clouds above,
                             scattered crows who clutter the dawn,
                             tall unkempt grass barely bending
                             in a way that hints at the whispers
                             we might be missing still.

                            

                            

 

                             Death of Someone Else

                             If you should ask her name,

                             I would have to answer, from
                             high above the stars, that a terrible wind
                             has taken her, alive.  She has departed
                             with only her father’s name, flowing now
                             on a river of scars and breathing.  She is
                             newly partnered with fluid silence and
                             has left her old voice on the low dog’s floor
                             to shed unwanted fur which clings like love
                             to everything she wears.  She writes
                             occasionally.  We can find her words flocking
                             around inner beauty and tragedies which
                             chuckle vaguely and peck for buried seeds
                             like masked November chickadees furled
                             against her cold new cold.  She lives on
                             the corner near a church’s bells, unsure of
                             herself—except for the sound of her
                             own noisy gong.  She has unfeeling
                             hands that no longer feel for me.  Her luscious
                             warm soup fingers are fresh but now cold.   
                             First snow and pictures litter the ground,
                             not everywhere, but everywhere enough
                             to know how cold it is without her.  

 

 

 

 

 

                             The Day Before

                             What is so hard about

                             standing in the middle
                             of a grove of discolored
                             gray trees fearing the loss
                             of children to their ways,
                             the yelp of rusting square cars,   
                             the futile rage of holding on?
                             Every stone and finger knows
                             that round wind is a peaceful
                             instrument, a voice made clear
                             in ancient streams whose death
                             is caused by natural giving
                             and spirited mortalities. 
                             As we descend hour by
                             white hour we emerge into
                             vibrant inconvenient colors
                             who carry us unwittingly
                             into ourselves, into inner peace
                             and the magnificence
                             of our own last clearings.
                             When we stand to view
                             ourselves in open places
                             we can be found in a
                             grove of colored leaves who
                             waver inside unsettled wind
                             swirling ever on.

 

                            

 

                   Plunge

                   A tall collection of tiny feathers

                   flurries down before us, soft and white
                   and gray.  Each is full of lofty air,
                   full of many opened wings after
                   a long downstream of breathing.
                   When gray clouds come with rain to
                   soften us into trust and pleasantries,
                   we will be kept dry in this and
                   smell like a warm new egg.  It feels
                   like strange dark love filling us.
                   We learn to breathe without learning
                   what it is we should understand--
                   the hearty crimson trees; new
                   tulips in bloom, young and tall and erect;
                   the pumping wet lungs inside our moving,
                   like large ripe red peaches curled in jars.
                   A pair of silent swans passes by together
                   over a sky full of songs.  They are cradled
                   together after an empty nest and a rich harvest
                   in which no gifts were expected or received.
                   So much desire stirs inside of us;
                   vast inclusions of which we are unaware. 
                   They exceed the cost of slipping into easy
                   harbors where the naked wind sleeps,
                   where currents and stones are limiting,
                   where the mistrusting craze of solitude
                   gathers us down into our own tender limbs
                   to hold us hard on the inside until we open
                   ourselves like sails and soar gently
                   toward the open silver ocean to join
                   the flocks already waiting there.  
                  

 

                             Yard Sale

                             I have been instructed to play,

                             for my own good—accountably and
                             without reservation.  “What does it mean,
                             to play?” I ask, and reach for my instincts.
                             I cannot know where the dog will chase
                             his own obsessions.  I do not know
                             how to lollygag with cats whose
                             expertise, it seems, lies always in
                             knowing what to do.  My children come
                             and go, like groceries, and the scent of them
                             lingers after meals.  I see them still
                             in the cupboards, in the yard where they
                             used to play, in the neighborhood now
                             older and more serene.  College had its
                             invitations, the shenanigans, the periodic
                             flicker of candles.  I have books and books
                             of music now, black starlings pecking in the
                             yard, and warning lights blinking about my car. 
                             I have rows and rows of hats and many
                             plates to wash, and knees folded like a
                             mountain under the blankets, scaled down
                             to the size of pleasant dreams.  I can feel
                             the oceans tug from across the world and
                             wonder if I’m part of the tides, if I’m
                             supposed to be somewhere else, or if the clouds
                             are just another row of patients waiting for the
                             next appointment.  Perhaps if I still had
                             a favorite toy, a mason hammer, a collection of
                             screens, I could use them to pan for gold.
                             I could crouch all day against the river current,
                             I could sing if I could sing.  At least I still have
                             fingers to scoop the earth, to examine stones,
                             to scoop frosting from the jar for a cake not made
                             to celebrate someone who is no longer here. 
                             To play, I must return to the shore where
                             I was made.  I must bathe in the water there,
                             huddled and naked and curled in the warmth
                             where I first learned to unfold.  There, new
                             rain will laugh on me and wash off all concerns. 
                            

  

                                               

                             Passage

                             We are willed to find a young girl

                             heavy with child.  She may have

                             fallen to the floor.  She may have

                             wandered into a field.  She may have

                             found her way into a modern home with

                             dust and pet hair under the furniture.

                             This native girl spent her adolescence

                             making small baskets out of reeds,

                             thinking falsely that no mystery

                             could ever fall between the tight spaces

                             of these ancient weavings.  Still, wind

                             and host and friend will gather by her side. 

                             She will not know where to hide them,

                             nor the angels for the long, long ride. 

                             If they arrive, she will be exhausted

                             by the journey.  She will thirst for home

                             water, she will hunger for ripe figs.

                             Cold straw, loosened by a gasp in the field, 

                             will buffet her gaze, will suffer her

                             the scratches of many uncomfortable questions
                             and pain.  In her hand, she will squeeze a small feeble

                             candle relished for its sanctity.  She will wield a

                             small knife to rid a ripened pear of its wounds

                             and then give thanks.  She will bathe

                             and soon find a heap of dark water and wanton 

                             red stains pooling around the bottom.  When she is

                             finished, she will dry herself faintly, rub the scent

                             of sleep into her hair and elbows and heels.  She will

                             assemble her brush and robe and a travel blanket

                             containing her child.  She will fade over the hills

                             under a dazzle of nightly stars with the hope of

                             something more to follow.