Yes I do

The truth is I do not believe

     in magic, 

miracles, 

ghosts, souls--

      all that jazz.  

Yet when a hundred herons 

     sitting still 

on the edge of the shore 

      suddenly rise as one 

in a blur of down moving 

      in slow, slow beats 

blocking sky in their storm 

      of snow,  

I do, yes, 

yes I do 

     sense wings move in me.

I do 

     feel a swooping down 

from clifftops.

I do

      feel my body in that updraft 

soaring 

      toward the moon 

and what is left

      of me 

on this empty beach 

      is but a tiny cloud,

a mere idea

     on which good fortune dusts 

a sweet, sweet down. 

My teen boy moans......

 Our teen boy claims:

 On the hour his handsome face 

droops below its perfect bone line,

he will kill himself--

so unable to bear life 

without glacier taut skin--without 

the tangled dark hedges

thickening head to limb. 

It would have been easy 

to fall on my knees in tears

to recal my own youth, 

when the cells of this body

loaded up like bee hives 

with clear honey,

when my own eyes beamed 

from stars within, 

not yet being a moist-eyed widow 

staring out from heaps of stones 

lathered in froth along the shore--

not yet sitting like a living memorial 

with a fault line carved 

on my heart--without 

this fierce longing

to blend with the lavender 

of sky and sea,

all sadness gone 

from this throat.

But the feeing passes. 

This boy, this figure of beauty, 

believes one day he 

will will smash himself

against the kitchen wall 

like an empty wine bottle.

 Oh Just wait, I tell him,

Watch how long--with what heart-- 

your shaky hand clasps that bottle.

Thank you for the brilliance

 Oh constellations, thank you

for all the life 

    you spit out from 

      your ancient 

                          furnace.

Even our lowly beetle 

        pushing balls of dung 

        across the ground 

        steers its course by 

                    your miracle light.  

Thank you for the brilliance 

          you splatter across what 

            seems to us an 

                        endless sky.  

And though

this bright snow moon 

          may be a minor work 

          for you,  its light 

            shines in a billion 

                  spoony eyes tonight. 

And along earth's dimmest 

            shores, crabs right now 

            spin rock bits

                          into pearls. 

Proof

 Here high in the woods 

warm softly dark 

light keeps changing 

venue and shape, 

leaking streaks along 

some lucky branches 

in between 

blinding super nova flashes 

make my body tingle

under their sudden spell--

stop me in its thrall--

which is why 

I come here to worship 

this sleigh of hand,

to feel this power over 

the mundane, to bow 

to impossibility, to inevitable, 

to eternal, to sense my life 

as one branch on one tree 

in endless forests, 

a tiny part 

of the full story 

of a seed igniting 

in a blur of heat 

growing roots, heft, height 

not knowing  

what will happen next, 

that being a mystery 

or quantum mechanics, 

meaning we sense profound 

things that have no proof

outside the heart.  

Death Valley: What is the reason?

Moon, I come so far 

to be dazzled 

        but not by you. 

I come for the Milky Way,

for its points of light 

      sprayed across the sky.

But your ancient mask glows 

wide its tranquil mist 

over rocky hills, 

    these salty flats of

Death Valley--the darkest place 

on earth except on

nights when you

illuminate all--

even the atmosphere, 

     even the solitude.

In your light I feel this earth--

its vastness, its great unknown, 

all its ancient dust blown

on these battered stones.

     But not a reason for it. 

Waiting for miracles

It will take a miracle, 

the nurse

texts 

of Sue.  

And the day 

gives more 

to mourn. 

Mel's text dings: 

Off life support.

His miracle 

did not come.  

Jan got final radiation.

Her voice 

without weight:

It will take 

a miracle

The arc of life leans 

toward 

the ground.  

All alleys flow 

to nothing.  

The wind 

will 

carry us.

Thinking under a full moon in Death Valley

This moon--

I cannot stare long 

     into that white bulb 

    lighting the low desert,  my

    fear of dying 

                      before I'm ready 

and my other fear--

                      I may never be ready--

     all this extravagant beauty 

     standing in the way.  

In this old basement

    of North America--

    this dried out sphere 

   of flat but rocky plain, 

   of ruffled mountains 

   of pyramid dunes,

                 on cracked ground where 

once blue seas gleamed 

                for centuries.  

This sand confirms it all,

      red mountains divulge 

      what broke them

to all who speak

                  their language.  

Here I see what will become of me 

       but cannot turn away. 

This black vault, 

     this white flash above,

    all the nebulas beyond--tell 

                    that nothing survives the night

                    that I do not think these things 

                   alone.