In Our Stove

              [Norma photo]

A log can burn,
Release years
Of gathered sunlight
From its rings.
We also burn,
Metabolize the
Ageless light
Of things--
Far fires,
Stars unknown--
And to the
Light of stars
Return our own.

Clearing

I have cleared a path
Through thickets thwarted
At an overlying log, a
Trail in our woods that
Otherwise guided a child
Around and under one
Wonder to another --
To see, to ask the impossible
Of me, which I would
Answer, of course, incorrectly.
So much laughter and
After so much work
And play, a child tows
A wagon away.

Early Rose

Let what leads
Song and feathers into
Warming wind draw
Winter to a close.
Let all lament
And cold-kept grief
Recede and fade and give
Place to the rose.

Grace Cathedral, Nob Hill Poem

Who keeps the keys?
Who sweeps lint over
Labyrinth, sill, steps,
And down the windy hill?
Who presumes
To launch it away,
Shake it from a broom
Above the bay?
A few hopes snagged
On each other,
Around which a ghost grows,
All dust and web --binding
Him, her, hers, his.
Who knows how haunted
This universe is?

Horsewish

     I'd like to have a
     Patchwork horse
     I could ride under
     Arbors of dreams.
     Through floral arch
     Sleep and thoughtwork pergolas,
     I would ride my ridiculous horse. 

     I would follow a
     Ribbon of glowing
     Motes along galactic
     Dawn, ascend over avalanched
     Days --embers under its course.

     Over clouds composed
     Of begins and of ends where
     All events assemble, we
     Would fly; my horse and I could
     Canter on cosmic winds.

     Eternally journied,
     Ever arrived, and
     Always about to
     Begin are too diverse for
     The logic of earth but
     I'd like to have such a horse.

Afflatus

Its center calm,
A whirlwind moves
Over me.
A memory of
An old embrace,
I walk with it
A little.

Sowbug On A Bowl

Who's to know what I have said? This bit of clockwork in my head
Has no after, no before and knows no more than
Clockwork knows the world.
What I have said: thoughts are compounded ages,
Noises near a cluster of gauges where
Escapement ticks, flywheels whiz, where worry and a bit of business is.
We aren't only curled around a wheel. We are a bigger deal.