Detail

At first it could be
A granite cliff but 
If we look closely,
Isn't --only a fallen tree.
What we see in 
Adjusted distance, moss,
Mass, is black wood
 Over grass,

                 which seems 
To rotate from
Simple plane  to 
Lemniscate, and at
Its tip retain spheres
Of recent rain. 
In neither garden
Nor brain can we
Find any better 
Signs for infinity.

Theatre of Season in Change

How did it get so cold?
It can't be I have got
More sensitive,
Which leaves Earth
Farther from its sun --
One and all need to
Get out and push!
Where rain-rotted tree-
Leaves fell and froze,
Bulbs are rising now
And those lift to  bring
This show of spring:
We clap our calloused 
Hands, our hurting 
Hands --intermission 
Complete-- and return
To our seats.

Temporal Covenant

All experience
Bound to one
Instant, an
Enchanted flash
Of fire and shape.
Is it motion or
Expanding stillness? 

Love grows.
What time
Is a rose?

Geranium

In flower language
Geranium means folly.
Probably some outrage in 
Restoration drama, a fluke,
Cad, a missing comma
In a perfumed letter --
A rebuke then, better left
To the past than any future
Time might emit and call
Us here, where it seems so clear.
Geranium means sprouts
Where other cuttings wither,
Stems jammed back in earth
Issue threads, thrive, neither
Conquered nor dead but
Quite the reverse --if this is
Folly, we could do worse. 
 

Explaining Myself To A Purple Pansy

Born deep in another
Century --what did 
I feel and do?
I'd wake and sleep
In sun and night --in
Light of other days, 
Like you, in what is real.
I felt time take me
Here, where we are
In hope and dream.
It does not seem so far.

Halloween Poem Inserted Into Hamlet Act 5, Scene 1

(I found this Calderon scene slightly more fun than Hamlet and Horatio unearthing Yorick's skull in the graveyard. Have always wished the old jester had a line in Shakespeare's play, but ventriloquism with a skull would be a bit morbid) 

This shell of holes and hinges
Doth in disinterment turn
Bold and impart timeless
Secrets to thee --lives in discussion,
Not aristocracy, want thought
And not decree-- in guilds and
Trades, list, oh list: the human
Mind seeks rationality, the sublime,
To combine and and set it free.

What Doves Do

["Mother and two baby birds, if you can find them in the darkness"--Norma]

We wait on trellis arches
For faces in ivy leaves--
Whether eye-patched pirate or
Jesus-- what we see and sees us--
What one believes depends
On angle, light, on sundown
Shadow --impressions one
Receives change in setting sun.
In all, whatever runs this
Process, we are doves, and
Even nightfall brings us love.