Horseback on Sunday morning,
harvest over, we taste persimmon
and wild grape, sharp sweet
of summer’s end. In time’s maze
over fall fields, we name names
that went west from here, names
that rest on graves. We open
a persimmon seed to find the tree
that stands in promise,
pale, in the seed’s marrow.
Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear,
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye
clear. What we need is here.
Apr 28, 2025
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Raw shore of paradise
which the long waves reach
just as they fail
one after the other
bare strand beyond which
at times I believe I see
as in a glass darkly
what I know here
and now cannot be
a face I can never touch
a gaze that cannot stay
which I catch sight of
still turned upon me
following me
from under the sky
of your groundless country
that has no syllable of its own
what good to you are the treasures beyond
words or number
that you seize forever
unmapped imperium
when only here
in the present
which has lost them
only now
in the moment you
have not yet taken
does anyone know them
or how rare they are
Apr 9, 2024
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a couple months ago I'm out behind the gabled house with dregs of home still seeping through its edges, a sharp sort of newness ripping the seams of who I am & who I was, sweaty fingers slipping from between each other with the bloodied grasp of desperation - it is a spring day, and I am here again. the leaves are new and the blinking infant furled in the strands of my chest takes a breath and every time I trudge through these vine-ridden woods I feel her grubby hands trace the creases in my ribcage. there are ghosts here, the soulmate-friend across the ocean and I and the way we'd take axes to the already-fallen trees like our anger was spraying away with the bark and we were left with only breeze. there are the phantoms of our hands stuck in the mud, ripped leaves beneath our fingernails as we unclogged the flow of the creek and watched the water dig its trenches deeper, and now i'm watching it capture the light of a new year in my hometown alone. through the leaves and over the tinny chorus of water-on-rock I hear the echoes of a mother calling to her children in a game of hide-and-seek, her children laughing, the clamor of it like a memory captured on tape and played back. there is a hole here, radio waves rippling through years folded back and punched through, I a bystander to the reminiscence of a stranger years down the line when some part of that laughter will be lost. it is here. it is here now, in the backyard of a house I sometimes call home.
May 5, 2025
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1
There was a time
only certainty gave me
any joy. Imagine —
certainty, a dead thing.
2
And then the world,
the experiment.
The obscene mouth
famished with love —
it is like love:
the abrupt, hard
certainty of the end —
3
In the center of the mind,
the hard pit,
the conclusion. As though
the fruit itself
never existed, only
the end, the point
midway between
anticipation and nostalgia —
4
So much fear.
So much terror of the physical world.
The mind frantic
guarding the body from
the passing, the temporary,
the body straining against it —
5
A peach on the kitchen table.
A replica. It is the earth,
the same
disappearing sweetness
surrounding the stone end,
and like the earth
available —
6
An opportunity
for happiness: earth
we cannot possess
only experience — And now
sensation: the mind
silenced by fruit —
7
They are not
reconciled. The body
here, the mind
separate, not
merely a warden:
it has separate joys.
It is the night sky,
the fiercest stars are its immaculate distinctions–
8
Can it survive? Is there
light that survives the end
in which the mind’s enterprise
continues to live: though
darting about the room,
above the bowl of fruit–
9
Fifty years. the night sky
filled with shooting stars.
Light, music
from far away — I must be
nearly gone. I must be
stone, since the earth
surrounds me —
10
There was
a peach in a wicker basket.
There was a bowl of fruit.
Fifty years. Such a long walk
from the door to the table.
__
From The Seven Ages (Ecco/Harper Collins, 2001)
Jun 11, 2025
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I’m not a parent and do not plan to be. Kids can wear me out fast with their high energy and noise level; it leaves me very over-stimulated. But it’s pretty extreme when people say they ”hate kids” and I often feel it’s a reflection of their childhood and beliefs around how kids “should be.” That they were expected to be quiet, obedient, and out of the way by their parents when they were little.
It’s fucking hard to be a kid. You’re dealing with a rapidly-changing body and underdeveloped brain, managed by flawed adults who are enforcing boundaries that you do not understand. It’s confusing and hard to manage your feelings and honestly just a lot.
People are impatient with kids when they‘re brand new to the world and figuring it all out, and this is a time kids need a friend the most. Children can also be teachers to adults with how they are less habituated to the world. They teach us how to be free and open-hearted and silly and imaginative.
A good practice is to be kinder and gentler with kids. If that feels difficult, start with gentleness toward your inner child. Maybe that’s the child in your life that needs your attention and kindness most.
Apr 16, 2025
May 6, 2025
I meant to post this yesterday. Absolutely beautiful morning for walk.
This morning is also beautiful but in a spring rain kind of way.
Mar 23, 2025