My material relations...

Because of my material relations,

I am

in a manner god will never be,

not despite, but because 

of god’s intimacy.

**

Looking for inspiration 

feels too much like unasked-for solitude,

but Simon Ortiz, Lakota poet, falls from the shelf

into spread open hands, telling me to pray,

to first say a prayer, and right there

I know I’m not alone.

**

Attention moves from inside out, seeing 

the distant city full under the fall of fog, 

while here, a handful of miles south, 

clear skies and smooth moon present 

a different quiet—a poem, a prayer,

are they two?

**

So tiny a hummingbird— 

but for its blur, I would not see, 

nor could I know 

the blossom’s nod

of agreement.

**

Release and relief

in the words that come

as lightening bugs do,

illumined clues.

**

That we speak: we are who we are because of it.

Imagine what more we might most commonly be 

that we could learn more of by doing it more

with each other:

**

The dark holds light longer this time of year,

but not so tightly—I’ve woken and walked

at all hours able to see, to discern the dark 

with its light held there. 

Words too, when out there in them,

will tell their meanings.

**

As the pandemic refuses to follow

the dying fires, the sun rising looks

very much like itself again. 

Sky breaks pale hues, scratches clouds 

softly pink, squirrels jumping,

seeming to know 

not just when to stop, 

but how again 

to start.

**

—Charles Olsen: “I know men for whom

                                     everything matters.”

**

I’m here, so I write, I speak and listen,

hear and see our world, engage our world,

as it is with me and me in it—and isn’t this 

the whole of the way it is for us, here 

among the stars…

**

After uttering the prayer

that is not so much prayer

as gladdened voice,

he turns away from the sun

that leans his shadow 

into all it spreads 

before him.

**

Whatever is it that I can possible bring

to the page into this day

that hasn’t already been given

to give ?

**

Our senses challenge inattention,

deny notions of separation,

draw close the world 

for our words to open, 

for our voice to remember.

**

Sometimes I don’t like being old,

like when for no good reason 

being bone-tired for days.

But then, the moon last night

was sliced clean in perfect half,

crystalline a’glow in a sky so empty

I have to believe the best of my energies

were better needed elsewhere out there.

Sometimes, I don’t much like being old,

but then, there’s the moon, and,  always,

the sky.

**

—October, half-way

The season shifts, the way they do,

always surprising.

Orion looks down to streets 

surer than trails, bumbling feet 

following the star bright to the south,

steadily waiting—bumbling feet.

**

Sitting in the dark of morning

in thought of course, a given,

thinking of words, another 

given, streaming to the page

through fingers that hear

the things that pulse to speak 

their silence there.

**

—The man on the stairs

The man is large. Over forty-not fifty, he negotiates 

the stairs as an older man might, too big a belly  

for grace, t-shirt pulled out in front. But his hands 

hover round his kids like someone who touches 

them a lot, are attentive too to his dog. 

When speaking, he moves his hands, points 

and gestures at things, but not at the people 

around him—there, the hands hover and care, 

but do not intrude—I’d trust what this man said 

if he were asked, and wish indeed I had something 

to ask, so I might feel that trust.