Descent

Be prepared for darkness

to overtake you unawares,

from the heart of the white sky.

Think how it flows

down the dark mountain,

rubs out the rock face

with its broad thumbs,

erases the edges of leaves

and moistens the bark of the maple

with absolute color.

It closes the door of the clearing

without a sound.

Think how it seeps

into the pores of your skin

and strokes your clavicles

with the touch of fingers

caressing the strings of a harp.

And think how your body

must resonate

with unseen rustlings

and with the myriad questions

filling your bones like mist.

Pinesong: Awards 2009 (The North Carolina Poetry Society)

The Neighbor

“The most we can say is that

 the world is lila, God’s play”

                          —Huston Smith

The neighbor-lady’s mad.

They say her name is Lila,

but she always speaks in tongues.

Some days it’s beetles

that come flying off her tongue—

that tongue gray-green and curling

like the fiddlehead of a fern.

They put me in mind of Granny’s jewels

I pawned so long ago, them beetles,

the shine of their hard wings

so many colors in the lamplight.

They rattle loud as hail against the windowpane.

Other times she speaks nothing

but starfish and the house smells

of salt. They scuttle over the sandy floor

and under them wide blue skirts she always wears.

I don’t mind the butterflies—some purple,

and some with wings clear as glass—

but other days her tongue’s like pink elastic

and shoots out teeny frogs bright as sunrise,

only louder.               I never know

what she’ll be speaking next—

snakes or peacocks or some great beast

with tawny shoulders and a wild green eye.

It ain’t natural.          So I says to her,

I’m moving back to town—

I got to get away from the everlasting

clatter of your tongue.  She just throws

back her head and laughs

birds.

Earthspeak Magazine 9, Autumn 2011

The Rosewood Bird

summer mornings

your whistled tune

a bridge

into wakefulness

the valley echoes

tying the kite

to the lilac hedge

to sail alone

all afternoon you fashion

tethered dreams

fragrant shavings

curl from the planer

the child fancies

manes and beards

for a plywood menagerie

the birds you made

feeding their young

and flying

somehow

on mahogany wings

shape engrained

already in the seed

your hands

that guide the chisel

at the lathe

fitting the brass lid

on the memory jug

blue and white crockery

shattered into shards

your scarred hands made whole

summer evenings

the glow of your cigarette

under the elms

your gaze

far down the river valley

still folded

in a trunk

the sweater I wore

the day I learned

what you had done

 Twenty Years Tanka Splendor, 2009 (AHA Books). 
Three-way tie for winning sequence in the 20th Tanka Splendor Awards Contest.