if we're counting

if we’re

counting

sylla-

bles be-

cause each

counts, what

does that

say ‘bout

words, but

words too

must count 

of course—but

what about

first things first—

what about

breath—that 

counts too 

of course

for everything…

**

we speak, stutter, sometimes stop

only a bit before flow leaks, explodes,

reveals, wavers, sings along, slows 

and breath we’ve been following

catches up, settles…we see, 

collect and again speak…

I didn’t know that I’ve known

the muscularity of speech, the physicality

of language making itself bodily

through us, bodily—say the word  

that’s passing by, aloud 

or not, we feel it 

just the same, 

like the curls on tongue and fingers alike 

as we write, 

lipped acts and sensations, breathed: 

compressed-expanded energies 

collecting-disbursing exchanged signals,

converging currents of being 

being alive—we speak

of senses, of five portals, but there is

this sixth not spoken of as such perhaps

because 

something else seems 

to be going on—

yes, we see, we hear, and we say 

we speak, but it’s equally true and more so 

maybe to say language speaks,

language speaks to us, of us, words tell 

us: what’s that we see, what’s that we hear, 

and yes, tell us our thoughts 

and feelings too—

yes, we learn, early, a language, or two,

but to learn a language is to learn what

that language is saying 

so we can learn to say too—language speaks, 

we hear and we learn 

to say, 

again and again

we learn—

to learn to listen to hear 

is to learn more and more 

what there is to say

     the morning glory

     tentacle reaches, reaches—

     

     passing currents pass

**

scribble, scratch

multiple

framed photos

of people

died and gone

looking out

from somewhere

shared but passed

send me warm

memories 

scratch, scribble

**

at work, at rest

in the yard in the sun,

even questions 

can’t hold in place

simplicity fluttering 

glinting leaves

full with sun-lit lifting…

breathing 

**

waking this morning, 

nothing to do, everything done

fluttering here and there

**

just off to the left,

what I’ve known all along 

waits without so much 

as a whisper,

fully operational

**

not a paid subscriber, 

my voice un-aloud

,

I ask of morning

what day might hold

by just listening

**

getting up at night 

to pee—the sheets save

the body’s warmth

**

—the wife

muffled kitchen sounds

mean morning waiting-time

passes—swallowed meds

need rest awhile before

coffee finds its way in

**

the frog on the shelf

in the living room says nothing—

no water anywhere

**

we rest often now,

often nap, for no reason

in particular

**

whatever someone

I might have tried to be, 

this one will do

**

the roller tip pen

ink doesn’t pull at the page

to slow words to think—

they just pour out like this,

morning quiet left speechless

**

whatever it is, 

this writing way, passing words 

pulling random thoughts

**

a brushed beep—

a car’s horn 

in morning

swallowed

**

myriad thoughts trickle

and run unchecked

impressions clicking, glinting 

openings opening open…

**

some mornings

even over

eighty

seem somehow

something

new—writing

different ways

to better

feel newness 

linger

like scenting summer flowers

**

resonance…

writing is the bell

poems sound

**

circling hawk calls

distinct, unmistakable

to knowing ears…

clouds

sky