The Night Shift

Unlit witches search
Latent paths ahead
Of plasma--
Dangerous work
Under the rod--
A kind of hysteria
In clouds of sheet lightning
And earthwide echo.
Rain falls
Around a plume of entropy.
A consternation of witches
Stirs the steaming sea.
By dawn only fog
Clings to the garden and
Work awaits me.

Travertine

Eyes of creatures long gone
And what they saw are
Caught under crystal
From solution--
Light of other days compressed
Into stone, deposited
Here and there--
Their tongues lapping
At the surface of waters
Long since turned
To desert.
Here, between red,
Green, yellow are
Black veins in
Travertine that tell
Of seas, rivers, lakes
Come and gone,
Prairies carbonized.
There is much to read
In a pebble.

Refraction In Garnet

This evening enters
The garden on rails
From an easement
Between the inquisitive
Scent of cut geraniums and
Autumn night.
It rolls under clouds
Of red light, on
Distant steel.
I hear wheels, a
Train far away
In a promise of rain.

Elements Of Grammar

When we look at stars
We look in silence--
Universe can't speak
Through vacuum.
Silent stars, but they
Can in combination
Make our oceans move,
Sing in barking breakers,
Susurrus from sand.
This is the language
We must learn
To understand.
By the same vocabulary
Wind drives dry
Rose petals into a
Garden corner.