A shadow breaks free
reaches into a dance-move
one arm tracing the arc
of the planets one leg
angled in flight
the other tree deep-
rooted, balanced

Those fine, knotted intersections
held back in their gathered mass
now float aloft wrinkling
and unwrinkling in waves
of geometry folding
and unfolding

I’ve always liked the view despite the clouds
the telephone poles their sagging lines
playing slack key up and down the straight road
the way the northeast winds suggest each turn
of the languid mobius windmill blades

the way the cattle people this scene fretting
into each other’s skins in these wide open spaces
or the egrets who rise up from their cross-eyed
meditations and hold steady their white
brush strokes against the lapis lazuli

over the sea and far away
the seven sailing stars above
clouds encircle islands like a lei
and the whales still talk of love
some travelers stay awhile and leave
while some people find a home at last
some give back more than they receive
some say they used to move too fast
paradoxically this land called paradise
looks deceptively slow and easy at first
but life’s on the edge and a word to the wise
before your endless vacation bubbles burst
never turn your back on the ocean
and watch out for the goddess of lava in motion

I like the generosity of numbers, the way they fill pages with their flourishes and tails, the way their eyes pop open or close tight, and their strict lines, too, their parallel bars at times, their intersections and severe cross-hatchings, as if they're saying All is precision. All may be counted. And indeed, they tally up the waves and wind, the barometric undulations of our elemental days. How thrilling! How generous indeed. And what if we'd lost them in a funk? Where would we be? Driving who knows how many miles per hour.

It's a bird! It's a plane!
Why can't it be a man?

Honey! Honey! he said
as she cycled down the road

sounds of children
in the near distance

— Honey! You forgot
the shopping list!

There's the tree rooted firmly in that corner of the garden, branches bare this time of year, though buds appear to promise that these ancient limbs are no less capable than their supple neighbors. Lichens rust, gray and green may be found clinging to one side where the prevailing cold enters this scene. A robin redbreast clasps a crooked arm. She gives us her bold and complex song. We strive to hear repetition and find none, although there is an inner song that changes little, one of jubilation riding just this side of doom and decay, but for now, her song holds forth, catching us up in her quest for life —

Centipede tracks in the dust defining the anatomy of the past — like the time you took your siesta under the swing set and dozed off to the faint percussions of far-off conversations in that coffee shop in the rain the way it fell in big drops one per cloud passing over the wires, one at a time, too, from each runnel of the corrugated roofing — you know, those corduroy roads the plantation trucks claimed as their own. Those were the dust storm days with a small confusion at the weekend as Shinto and Christian split the difference in the morning air.

Song For Aunt Helen
— On Her Eightieth Birthday

You set the whites out on the hedges
Pulling bleach down from the sun
Gooseberry pies cooled on the ledges
Each day sang its work hard won

You were the young and faithful daughter
Milking the cows, making the bread
Fetching the eggs, carrying water
Long after everything was said