A Thousand Mornings

When I lived under the black oaks

I felt I was made of leaves.

The chickens ate all the crickets.

The foxes ate all the chickens.

I ate the fish.

You are going to grow up

and in order for that to happen

I am going to have to grow old

and then I will die, and the blame

will be yours

My body says: let me up and out, I want to fondle

those soft white flowers, open in the night

My heart says: there, there, be a good student.

A THOUSAND MORNINGS

All night my heart makes its way however it can over the rough ground of uncertainties, but only until night meets and then is overwhelmed by morning, the light deepening, the wind easing and just waiting, as I too wait (and when have I ever been disappointed?) for redbird to sing.

Who can guess the luna’s sadness who lives so briefly? Who can guess the impatience of stone longing to be ground down, to be part again of something livelier? Who can imagine in what heaviness the rivers remember their original clarity?

When death is about to happen

does the body grow heavier, or lighter?

the angels singing.

Now and again his white wrists

rose a little above the white sheet.

And we walked down the beach together.