turn of september

now we begin to farm our hardened organs
exhume them from the darkness
where they've been growing softer in the warmth of the soil

in a reverse rite of spring, let's set them in again
a beating furnace burns all aching to feathery ash
and the wine-red liver returns to cleanse its brother blood

in fall and winter, we'll be kept warm in the gloom.
refueled by les feuilles mortes and mint tea and the smell of pine,
slow engines purr, and will heat
greying skin to a rosy pink while the sun's aloof,
with a subtlety it couldn't possess

in the sun and in the dirt

how our hearts do slowly, on their own.
tiny growing things, pressing upward through white-flecked soil
and out of claustrophobic tombs toward sunlight
watered in words and visions

i hope that this is the way--
we find them sprouting up and out at
bach at lunch hour, peeping from under
keyboards writing poems and from behind
camera lenses taking photos. some have
a sort of smothered beauty, others a tough green resilience;
still others the pale white of moon or skin
and those are the most fragile, but easily the
most beautiful to someone like me.

they're so easily broken, these vegetable hearts.
cracking as watery stalks of celery.
but like an underground network of roots so entrenched
they'll quickly spawn a new seedling, nourished by mystery or music,
to be broken again or to spend all its life desperately learning
to flower, opening petal by petal until
maybe for those days of radiance
that is all there is and ever was.

4.4.09

rain in my eye, i am filled by the drive
we go to the hollow in the darkness
tree-limbs shift and thrash against the moon's face

i have yet to see the love of a man who wants to tear me apart
to reach the core. i have felt the most unobtrusive of loves:
there are those who care for you enough to give you good advice or cook for you.
those who would sleep with you, and even those whose caring you'd be lucky just to notice.
i find and catalog each of these; startling and beautiful
but i wonder--
will i see the flitting, elusive, other?
like a dark-feathered raptor, winging through spindly branches
it devours its prey ferociously. always hunting, always searching.

wind-encircled, i will hold us in no-time
where memories toss me like trees in the gale
and barely nudge you. opening tiny easter candy
packages of moments here; it's funny how i'll keep you out
by bringing you to this sacred place and
daring you to touch.

watching fireworks

i close my eyes on the night
knew you when your skin glowed with
grey-bright, black ink pulses
of celestial brilliance

i reach up to write with stars' light
tracing pathways through milky clouds

i want to feel small and cold and connected
a smooth rock shaved by river's rush
flail of the current--held tight by gravity

so i will open myself again to a moment
fireflies and the smell of fireworks
stretched on a blanket in heaven's cradle,
alone--not empty--and touched by everything,

tail lights want escape and honk frantically
i am above it all, and in it
spend each minute counting one blade of grass
in strobing, exploding light
tree branches scratching the darkness, aching again
to know when dawn will break open the night

balloon

now and again he travels
shifting between shadowed cradles
and lightened pedestals,
sand-worn heart tucked within folds

he wants to dance in the riverbed
spilling cold water from between calloused palms
and to know that he will emerge from the water

the metaphor for search spilt over from the summer
examining rooms, clearing cobwebs of courtesy
and paying tuition for an introduction

this clear heart like a roadblock
empty spaces where i might put down my shoes
hoping to step inside is to learn the steps
how i'll fold sheets of paper into origami chairs
and cups, sheets and pillows

we'll be too quick to measure a tether
and with it leave only
black balloons tied to bike handles
buoyancy thwarted