Remorse is a fog written down
twisted up inserted in a beer bottle
chugged in the back seat '66 maybe '67
thrown out the open window
with a chance of adding
a dent to any sign of authority
the trajectory of its fall
intersecting time and space breaking
arriving here this morning
here on the shore a message

Was that just thunder or someone dragging their chair
over the boards of the narrow porch at Nanbu's courtyard
now there's nothing to say there it goes again
right to the top of the list the one I haven't made yet
the one I will leave on the kitchen counter or right here
where it hasn't happened yet lists don't happen I know
they're written scribed chicken-scratched here's
the ox-heads making their As the double-yokes
their busy Bs the sickle C ready to cut through
Mediterranean waves now nothing just groceries

Spiders do it spinning a yarn
all the way across the wide Atlantic
how is that possible

Barnacles too on the backs of whales
encrusted they hunker down for long journeys
how did all this begin

Sunrise. Silence. How snow comes falling over the known world
covering all sound. I feel that childhood wonder stirring.
The pure exhilaration of witnessing the miracle of snow
that comes in the night. We wake up in our warm bed
a small world of its own. Pillows and blankets pushed
into a soft fortress against the unknown vagaries of the night.
We survived. We look out then. Step with that tenuous
reaching into the cool air. Barefoot across the boards.
Press against the glass and there it is. The frozen pond.
Familiar boulders statues and walkways all white.

A man walks by with a Bayer logo bag over his shoulder
I'm in the corner wondering what he's got in there maybe
something for the music in this place with its relentless
heartbeat I myself don't know what I'll do meantime here
in the corner between sips of Americano writing
whew it stopped or rather now it's strung out to dry
in long guitar gently working up to saying it in strings
outside on the way here the wet rounded setts where
First Avenue meets the brow of hill descending

No one knows that behind the counter
she wears those flamenco dancing shoes
somewhere over the rainbow
with a puzzled look or Dame Fonteyn
biting back a smile
a white camelia between her teeth
they don't know but how could they
from their centipede line wiggling over
café interior threshold into the world
of parked cars trees still dripping

—from a line in Frost's The Mending Wall

The work of hunters is never done they like to think
and thinking's never ending with their pursuits in mind
talking to older ones now reduced to staying home
weeding their small patch of greens
ones who see change a long way off
maybe pre-plantation days maybe ancient
family understandings and ways to read the signs
all creatures having their respective languages

Layer upon layer sunrise and crackle
in that place between radio stations
smoke inversions early frosts or late
snows stealing almond blossoms from us
well we might ask is it we who change
or the haze coming over the world
with each new invention child eyes
seeing one part of the spectrum
the one we reserve for nostalgia
and by the time we turn around

Like ancient wallpaper peeling at the corners
pulling with it the patterns before it revealing
plaster in crumbs and crusted states and before that
the lath behind all, the ribcage itself hiding behind
what we thought was the true wall
that's how it went the time we spent in the old cottage
when the light would die and other older lights
would smoke up the corners of our eyes
and remind us that we weren't alone other souls
inheriting their place in history the unrecorded

I don't know why but when I was a kid
it came to me in solitude alone away
from games and others the way we skated
over the world chasing and touching
hiding laughing skinning our knees
breaking the fabric that covered us
protected us then no it came to me

by myself the garden weedstalks
pebbles stones the whirring of winged
creatures shadows damp places
beneath or behind thorns the slow

The cabbage stared. Was that an iceberg lettuce over there on the other side of the cutting board—otherwise known as the chopping block? It was weird looking at your own green and leafy reflection in a knife blade the size of a hubcap—not that cabbages know much about cars. Now kings, on the other hand. Royalty and cabbage go a long way back.

I'll never forget my grandfather standing at the gate, the limp rabbit's hind legs caught up in one hand, its head and once-alert ears hung long, I reckon denied that last look at the cherished ground that provided shelter. No more the dark of the tunnels!

There at the keen edge her eyes
split with nowhere to look
but either side when all along
it's the space between enticing her
that place of emptiness that fills
with her concentration and skill
as she brings her well-honed steel
into the decision to change beech
oak maple walnut doug fir or
mesquite into beams walls

Her mirrors know her witnesses
in that confluence of ghostly presences
and the two dimensional wall
of her perceptions

her book markers
know her collection of thumb prints
the well-read coterie of borrowers and
lenders the never-returned perusers

Is that a typewriter I see before me?
Come let me press your space bar
with either thumb let me swing your
carriage to a new line hold down
shift and fly across QWERTY
ipsum capsicum and ampersand
without thinking fingertips resting only
on your home keys whilst pausing
twisting back your roller for earlier

Afternoon dives into an empty swimming
pool and says ouch lies there crumpled
on the bottom and waits till 5:30 for gin
and tonic to come and fill things up
again I say I say the evening star is
out and so will I be pretty soon sings
the long dry spell between noon and
six the breath held the pinched
expression forgiven as the hours grope
towards the ladder and the 5 o'clock

Your tongue along the salt
your toe inside the fault
and everything between vibrations
mine at last—let not these moments
pass away I heard it said
I hear it now I lean on you
like a child against the bed's edge
eyes tight against the truth about angels

Bless me father it's been so long
I can't remember how the incense smells
how it curls like God's thoughts
toward the dark regions of His house
yes I'm on bended knee glad to see
you've installed cushioning
since I last paid my respects to mortal and venial
I'm at that place on the spectrum your holiness
your grace my grace is a little worn
so much to reveal and so little time

Last seen walking an isolated beach
at low tide on a remote island
in fact the eye witness may be
making it all up the way
she leaned into him their hands
loosely clasped their knees
lifting in certain mystic synchronicity
his trouser legs unrolled and wet
around the ankles feet immersed
in trembling shallow surf a zephyr pink

"Pearls mean tears." — Doris Lessing

Pearls mean tears she said
What do you mean he said
Are we talking Tahitian black
fat too pricey for the casual gift

unless a million may be said
casually and you can step over
a twenty dollar bill without
stooping to pick it up and so forth

The Yellow Line

Grass grows down it
down the center line of this place
green tufts sprout from the faded ochre stripe
that separates our comings and goings it's
stretched out between us a cautionary tale
unwound from Pololu Lookout
all the way down Akoni Pule
and the rest of the story
running rings around our island
what else is left to say?