Landscapes
Lake Entiat,Eastern Washington,USA
Seen on a recent trip across the moutains for the New Year Holiday…
In Snow
Dust of Snow
The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.
This Morning
My Lover Gave Me Green Leaves
My lover gave me green leaves
with the mud of the garden on them,
radishes sharp and red,
nasturtium flames.
He gave me the tender heart
of a cabbage, its glossy coat,
a loaf of bread studded deep
with seeds.
He gave me the note
the blackbird
I’d cried at the blackness of
by the river sang.
He gave me the struck fire
of the thoughts
in his mind—
flint on flint.
He gave me the taste,
direct on his tongue,
of the syllables their embers
did not destroy.
He gave me his word,
the word of an Adam—
a promise,
should he set eyes on the sun.
He gave me a drop of the dew
to hold.
To see my face in it.
To look through.
He gave me,
in the chrisomed palm
of his empty hand—
a gasp of joy.
Beyond
Fog Horns
The loneliest days,
damp and indistinct,
sea and land a haze.
And purple fog horns
blossomed over tides—
bruises being born
in silence, so slow,
so out there, around,
above and below.
In such hurts of sound
the known world became
neither flat nor round.
The steaming tea pot
was all we fathomed
of is and is not .
The hours were hallways
with doors at the ends
opened into days
fading into night
and the scattering
particles of light.
Nothing was done then.
Nothing was ever
done. Then it was done.