Lines Written in Snow

You begin beginning

flowers and mountains

land, lakes, and streams

shoulders shrugging

off the loss of understanding

I punctuate the coming

just in case

the details that one may pick up

sounds like kissing wax paper

Wheels perfectly imitating,

even the sun the light house reflections

The singer singing the words

You begin beginning.

Little Photo

All life is like this afternoon

on your young sandy face

the weight of the stars

the body tasting like snow

the slipcover of communication

fleeting through the geography

of twilight paintings

firecracker mysteries

calm hurricane

sandwiches

and the intricacies of the days

before you knew they

even existed.

I know more wrote than read that book which is the self I am

When I had my vision

like the dark structures

of communication

turning somewhat lucid

I thought these

borrowed breaths

could picnic

for a century

and that distance

could allow the windmills

to stall and dry

into an afternoon's landscape.

And my dear child

will you ever know

how I saw the great

ohio ember

the rain move

like a hand with its palms

raised

the admission of the strange

the fuzz

that one sees

looking across the impermanent shore.

This is the mystery

that I am doing to myself.

And sometimes we hear

the tree run, the water erode

the stone grow

Leaving Home

Some of
us,

remember leaving

home in the morning,

exploring

the bayous,
fishing with bread,

catching hermit crabs

catching a fly

to put into

venus-flytraps

growing wild

in the meadow

eating sour weed.

How careless one must become

To know the pleasant promise

And solitary expedition

Of a tiny boy thinking.

:ove :oem

I'm late

I understand that

And I'm not interested

in the unusual ways

bugs mate

I don't think

that necessarily

makes good

poetry

But I do think

if I could touch

your hand right

now that would be

good enough

You see

I am very far away

from you

I don't

fully understand

that you could hear me

I am as a

lonely house

without windows

without floors

still

I am missing

I don't know why

our birth dates

are on everything

I touch

I think you

were trying to be

funny by giving me

a hard time

I got that later

I do love

you much

more