The Last Line

Ink and the Word

 

The orange gladiolus are blooming

In the vase, even though they can’t be seen.

The difference between chance and

Meaning is a distinction in tone:

I can evoke the petals spinning open

In time and space as the Dance of Shiva

If I so choose, and I do. I’m speaking

Of light and how it can make the air

Visible, so that you will understand

In the words I write what I mean when I say that I love you.

 

 

Goldfinches

 

Under the elm branches the feeder sways,

Swagged with gold birds, a singing chandelier.

Twice a twelvemonth they appear, coming / going:

The full Moon / The new Moon—-passing strange.

We only know what we learn, yet

There are things the goldfinch sings

I believe I understand. There is a shade

Of Yellow on the wing I had never seen

(And may never see again), from this place

(Even if it returns), with who I am.

 

 

 

Word Count

 

Another in a limited number of Autumns comes:

When the sun slants through the sumac at noon,

I see the last summer light slipping under leaves

Tipped in pale gold. . .But it’s a fine and welcome

Light, still warm through the window panes, motes

Spangling the room like stars. I linger here so

I can watch the night approach me, study each

Increment of change, and feel no loss. The words,

Too, limited and fading, finding solace in silence.

 

 

Woman with a Lute

 

In the raking light of time the foreground’s hard to see,

But we can surmise the chair is wood, lion’s head

Roaring eternally. It’s not the art of light and dark

That gives the girl such anima (we witness

The pause between breaths, the short-lived

Note of the lute no longer hanging in the air;

Even the birds have paused, deferring to Vermeer);

It’s the air he’s painted, the air manifested

In her hair, fingers, gaze. Chiaroscuro

Is a ghost in the room, the intelligence of silence

Defined by light: The grace of each moment,

Now and now and now. As if the artist was always

Present, now, capturing on canvas this ekphrasis.

 

 

 

Darkness in August

 

The heat of the absent day: The cicadas

Are finally silent but the soundless heat

Remains, sourceless. The hot night’s black

Is as baffling as a frozen bright day. Skin

And air, all there is, all thoughts absorbed

By it. In the hissing obsession with my own

Sweat, the sweating air, I’ve found a kind

Of Enlightenment. Eyes closed on the Darkness,

I know the way to wisdom can be found

In feeling the world more than I can stand.

 

 

Can It Be Touched?

 

I felt the bee underfoot before

It stung, the body marshalling

Its chemicals, endorphin-bathed

Senses turned prescient: Furry

Squirming, grass blades suddenly sharp

Between my toes, their intense green

A blow to my eyes, seeking a source—

And there’s the worker’s dying agony.

This is the point of contact, the tactile

Moment when the mind is clear, one-

Pointed and precise. Slapping out

The stinger, I watched the bee die,

And wondered: Will there be Intention

When I touch the thing I sting? Will

I know it, when I give it my life?

 

 

Can It Be Seen?

 

I can see the morning in the distance,

The dawn like a mango skin in mysterious

Unnamed shades of gold, demarcationless

And deepening down to red. Aurora

Is tender, they say. It’s an innocence

Repeated and ever-fading, like the grace

Brought on by the night, remembrance

And forgetting, the thousand moments

Captured and lost in our blinking eyes.

 

 

Returning to the Mountain

 

I’m casting my memory North to the Mountain,

Lost chasing the Present. The many kinds

Of pines know what I need: I’ve never seen moss

So green, so thick, on something so alive.

(I’m seeking Metaphors.) They give good reasons

To be still. I would have understanding,

But that’s why I don’t—the Moss as much a mystery

As the Mountain. I’m lost, after all,

In the manifold ways of the body.

And when I surrendered, I knew the reason.

 

 

Remembering August in November

 

The season of brown grass, of burnt leaves,

Still on the limb. Even the sky is bleached

A blue-tinted white; the very air smells hot.

The glass of ice water sweats itself slick.

I remember the cicada song in the morning,

The sound of the rising sun, a sound like haze

In the brain. Little anoles emerge, scramble

Up the fences, flare brilliant green to scare

Off rivals. The laughing gulls don’t care about

The time of year—there is no weight on the wing.

The shirt sticks on the back, and you must run

Across the sand, fast as you can, as you burn.

When I’m complaining about the weather then,

I’ll remember November mists in August for now.

 

 

The Human Breast

 

We impose on one another, & it is but lost time to converse with you whose works are only Analytics.

                                                    --Blake

 

And when You said to me, I am not a daemon,

I did not understand, because I heard the word

Instead of seeing it. Some go between, You

Meant. An intermediary. The shape of things

Shifts: The twisted thread around my wrist into my

Own desire. The flock of starlings, like chips

Of soot: My frightened heart. If I distract

The line between Us, it will dissolve, but I think

I am not safe. (You are not, You say.) A chorus

Is what’s needed, something to clarify the plot,

Restrain the unknown. No. What if the moment

Slides over into oblivion? No. I may find pain,

Or a saint’s ecstasy; a Form I cannot abide.

I may go past seeming, but find no being. No. I.