Before

Before the addiction,corrosion clicks in the mind.
The heart broadcasts a need to gather everything
like a wandering nun with only her clothes and a bowl
before God evacuates this desperate place of longing.

Before the shelling of thoughts begins,
let the mind rest in this moment.

The heroic Love will keep watch
with his hand on the breathing child within you
as light leaches into the blackness
where only the stars give consolation.

Shine there, in that very instance,
an exhalation,
an annulment of doubt.

Before you lift the thin edge of the glass to your lips,
smile at the warmth that will come home too soon.

Alone in the Last Days of Summer

These angelic days,
where I feel you near me,
ache with August.

Each sunflower
personifies years
of endless summer
and your breath constantly humming
at the base of my mind.

I am wandering again,
solitary as a stone,
in this new path of loving
all the nights.

The texture of another autumn
harangues the heat and is squandered
on copper and gold leaves
plummeting to the ground.

My body opens like a cloud of aspersions,
always the antagonist in my own poetry.

If only we could trace the corners of these thoughts
with enough time to heal everything we have ever wanted.
If only time wasn't so mighty.

Not Suffering in Montreal

After years of peeling the layers of grief
from the tender spaces between my cells

I have chiseled the stone and untangled the thorny vines
that revolve around the blushing martyr I had forgotten.

Now, walking the luxurious streets of Montreal,
I glance at myself in a window
and can smile at that wise novitiate,
blisters forming
on my tired feet.

Tonight I will let my head spin
with some cold wine
and an easy breath
that opens my heart as wide
as the seaway entering the ocean
one wave of suffering drifting away
at a time.

More Silence

We all have the capacity
deep in our dreaming bones
for more silence.

On this empty frontier of the mind,
clarity is the only expense.
Clarity is the solitary refuge.

I have sung this lonely canticle,
chanting in silence
until the echos accumulate
like petals of daisies
after a July storm.

This white vibration we share in the prayer beads
at the gathering of the pulse at slim wrists,
in the quickening pads of our fingertips,

is the gaze of a lover
holding the moment
for infinity.

This Time

Feel the heart of me
at your feet
washing the dust away,
washing the wounds that reopened
unexpectedly;
such violence
is unforgivable.

The loneliness of pain
after silence is a crime,
the price of another unspoken war.

This time, let the poet speak.

This time, stand in the center of the village
with your fists raised and let anger glow
like an ember that will burn the fields
clear of the wonder and abundance.

This time,
let the truth of sacred words
gather their force
with an all consuming heat
hungry for more.

And when you return from the scorched battlefield,
I will gather you into my arms, weeping
for all you have seen.

The mind cannot be healed.

The heart is a patient lover
tenderly soothing the broken Beloved.

Planting After Good Friday

Sweet peas
planted after good
Friday sprout near the slide
and swings.

I cultivate sunflowers
and the pumpkins
from last year
will blossom
nourished
by children laughing
in the green grass.

I harrow the earth
and fertilize with manure
and a winter's worth of composted
kitchen scraps.

We will all be fed
by the richest colors
when the sun rises early
and we are released
from worry about anything
but growth.

Hungry

The velocity of love,
lasso and tall boots included,
swishes above our heads,

gallops into the gracious sunset
boldly undisturbed by gravity
and shallow furrows in the earth
from which we all crawled.

Dust boils and heat waves shimmer in the distance.
In this arid and forlorn place we are endlessly trawling
for opulent words that cultivate the perfect moment
for romance, a lonesome trail song,
or some other mystery to be sung around the campfire
under the brilliant stars
and marveling at a round and radiant moon.

I am just another thorn under the saddle of losses,
afraid to look before the long day's ride is over.

It is fear that tracks me on this tired journey,
hungry and waiting for the predator
to see the weakness limping
near the edge of abundant joy.