And there he sat
There he stood,
And in a gaze
I saw in him
And deep
Sensed in the spread of his iris
The fresh, chilling air
Embracing, forcing each leaf in a dance
Yes, the wind was in his eyes,
Blowing over the many-hued landscape
And whistling across the caverns ‘round the tree roots.

In his cheek was the consistency
Of bark that stops, catches,
And bark aspen smooth.
And in his brow an embracing canopy
That folds you in the larger landscape
At once for you and at once for the land,
For the order that beats in our hearts,
Each of us
With toes pressing in the pine needles
With wrists, busts in the breeze.
Here, standing in each other’s eyes.

We're all progressing backwards
Toward these simple truths;
The ones which we've forgotten
In the wounds of youth.

And to have you here, my dear, my dear
Shall break all that binds us-
And find us in a missile's sin,
One day's redemptive violence.

Lodged in deep,
A finger's touch can surgically mend.
A strengthened soul, a taughtened heart
Can with more vigor bend.

And to renew, the dew, the dew
On shivering leaf depends;
You have my waist,
Bicep embraced,
And in the breeze I'm cleansed.

Sunday Morn

In a booklet by the founder of the Salvation Army, paraphrasing
Always follow the light, it is your salvation on a path through the dark woods. But it must be your own light-- the one who carries it is close to you, only illuminating what is around your feet. You will know the light when it comes to you. The light is in the Bible, your community, your heart.
This has been my experience lately, coming out, not being afraid of the dark, following the light.

Writing is my service. I learn in anthropology about nations that words become eternal, poems make groups of people who speak the same language into entire nations, and in repeating the words like the seasons, nation-states become as natural in their manufacture as the sun and the rain.
I am afraid sometimes of fitting my writing into some style, some box, a box that is not mine so I do not know its boundaries really. Here I am still, in my light-- sitting, traveling, recording, truths of a sort.

What have you learned, O man-- sitting there on the wall in Hanover-town? Removed from our daily stresses, our confined struggles- What by silence have you discerned from our incessant chatter? What by removing yourself have you gained?

The poet's word is greater than the poet herself, and must be celebrated by its due worth, must be seen as poet creation with flesh, soul, mind implicated in its deliverance, its trajectory to hearts and minds.

The poet writes. The people listen. All are served, all should be heard.

How can we create a habit-in-community so that poet-creation would transcend our daily troubles, carry us the daily bread of a communion beyond ourself, with real flesh implicated. Of course, never too much, never ego-fear inflating, never losing sight, ignoring the unseen, the unheard or the human in this quest.