THE VIEW FROM UP THERE

If I keep walking, the lights of the city
will keep burning. If I stop, if I think, everything
will go out over this disappearing world.
I don’t know what there is to find.
But someone must be waiting to hear.

(27 October 2006)

SCATTERING WINDS

Some fires burn.
Maybe we are afraid, and maybe
we feel the need to protect.
As I walk
there’re voices behind me.
I know what they are saying,
but I try not to hear them, and that
is what’s hard.

(23 October 2006)

EMERGENCE

I ask questions, I put them to the night.
I receive answers and ask
more questions, variations on a
theme. Unborn blades of grass
scream underneath the surface of the dirt.

Each day, of course, has its own
little miracles, and its own burden.
Soon we will realize
how closely tied together they are—
how this salvation
will lead to many salvations,
and how this failure will lead to many others.

(23 October 2006)

THE IMAGE

Sometimes we fall
into patterns of darkness.
I walk down the hill to the house
and stand outside of the gate.
On the other side of the road
is the grave of the woman
who would have been queen.
I can feel a coldness
before I turn my back.

(22 October 2006)

CARAVAN

If you just take a few steps, civilization
can completely disappear. Things are noticeable—
absent friends and funerals, dispensable culture
and preschool for infants—but this place
is always constant. A soft wind blows through a dry tree.
And in this moment, things seem possible
still, and failures don’t feel so big.

(21 October 2006)