? [Visiting Rhyme]

      ***


Heavy steps on worn out stones
in the light of oil lamps
Shower knobs are old-fashioned
but the room's brisk profound
Breakfast like at Al Capone
then a slave's practiced stance
Basking in the bus through Rome
where pine trees grow round

Waiting

      Waiting


Meditation is as they say
the turning of the river of thought
with a stick. Tilting one's head to tack
struggling the wind
up a longing for the mountain,
the feeling of one's way unstumbled,
consumed by the summit.

Among the currents of waiting
shelter a wild daisy.

Trees of noun and verb

      Trees of noun and verb


Between trees skirted with the silver mist
and trees donning incandescent embroidery
unreduced, are the summer memories bound.
Among leafing of noun and embarking verb
rustling tongues pressed to the page
taste of salt, smell the passing sun.
The semiotic roots draw from the rocky soil
an underground firmness, disguised by grass.

Discarded sketches of the night

      Discarded sketches of the night

*

The tingling word, the saving grace,
The folded note, the falling key,
the step by step, the funny breath,
the blunder at work, the muffin,
the banana, the tea, the night, the try,
the water to clean up, the t-shirt gown,
the memory of the lake, the emptiness,
the nothing, nothing, nothing.

*

A black night visitor, a daemon,
an unencumbered presence, a calling,
a troubling choice, a thief.

*

The tireless lights harassing the night
Blinded effort stumbles

*

your smile reaches far
through the fog of the night
in long socks on stilts
your touch asks a simple question
come up with me
see the lighthouse

*

The supersaturated graphite
hangs heavy
like the shadow of a black kite
from a changed sky.

Beauty

      Beauty


Eye-to-eye with wide open eyes
the lightness is threaded
and carried by the sound of violin.
Steps spin not missing a note
and not adding one on the precise
chords of the piano.
The arms that give and the eyes that receive,
instep to instep. There is a unique resolution
to the arc suspended on a hand and the edge of a toe
if one solves for the afternoon sun.
The dance studio expands
beyond the sun,
beyond time.

Romantic

      Romantic


There is a barren point in the middle
that philosophers call the transcendental subject.
The wind blows over dry and scarce snow,
the cold itches the nostrils, tenses the spine.
The gray night of having escaped into empty land
delineated by a black body of forest.
There is an unbounded space in the middle
that supports against shivering,
that establishes connection
with a red cliff, blazed by the high sun.
There is the middle in front of the stone wall,
poised to climb. In the midst of soaking sweat,
what is behind? With the inner gaze flattening
out that space,
two blankets lay as one on the fresh grass,
two recognitions rest on each other.

[life]

   ***


Thus is life: a symbiosis of a circular progression,
a mutual sway is its fabric. When you hugged me --
the measured form of a circle, a diagonal,
the centripetal force, the pivotal alignment --
life had me speechless. The still trunk of a tree,
the enlivened leaves. Therein you hugged into me
the braided exactingness of your duet,
the multidimensional symmetry of the troupe,
the ambiance with which the reproducing pattern
of body lines lingers, as it falls through me.
Thus life is the coming together of molecules, of cells,
of yearnings, a braided strength of well-rehearsed roles
brought into dances they have never dreamt,
and yet here you are, a miracle.