almost a snow angel today.

and eyes fluttered with white dew,
generous

this winter in abundant things
when the word appears everywhere
magic

how could you not turn january into
a stage of props and harmonies
somewhat like a galaxy

nebulous, sleepy

unravelling quilt made by the storybook
we read millons of times
when we were younger.

how about the sparkle inside of a galaxy?

ah yes, you

a pathway of butter flowers
when held up to your chin

makes radiant the you
standing in the field
even though winter

ablaze with wildflowers
you have drawn
on the graphite

storybook pages
of this is your life,

now lit up and neon,
now with the heart,
a red carnation
placed in the lapel

of this life:

can we just look upon it
like the red flower
painted up the wrists
of the field,

drowzy with the composition

of a woman in standing
still, so dazzled
by the nesting swarm,
just evening-

how you must change your life
when it is already perfect,
how you must run for it-

like the wolf howling
inside winter’s wind.

can’t we just say,
your life is a snowstorm of brilliant light,
flocking beautiful shadows across the page
just like the publication
of this poem

-the last days of disco 2011

i stayed with you because

what the wind said, when you
spoke.

hours and days are nothing
once the book is finished.

but yet, the story

still continues:

as if the author of this
was somehow writing
us:

in black lines on a page:

across rivers, and fields, and
indigo water-colored seas-

the way maps are drawn
of an old world

i don’t know what it is that you have seen.

the swirl of blackbirds at sunset.

inside my pocket, the moon.

the crease on your coat, the crease of your face against, snow-laden trees, and
this morning song, melting petals across a landscape, painted with little figures
bundled up against the cold.

there was a bridge of magical leaves, leading to the doorway of the house
where all the lights were lit.

we lit a fire against the darkness.
the river bounded and resounded
outside the windows.

tides we could not hold back.

the alchemy of hands made spirits we have yet to name.

i told you the story of the tree i sat beneath, with one finger raised,
to hold back time.

and wore a red cape, the color of the heart,
to put a blush of light into the landscape.

so you could reach out for me
if you want to.

-an ode to vermont in first draft, so many years later

beneath my feet: i love the way it feels,

this quiet

but sure, beat of the heart-sea,
it’s easy to have more focus
than what constellates stars

i watch darkness take off his shoes,
and rest a while, turns down the bed sheets,
and rests a while.

we don’t talk much, but the way the flowers
silently grow beneath my feet, i know
there is nothing to be afraid of

when there is poetry to recite,
this wordless branch that reaches out
over blackness, dancing around, as

if he stole my heart,

as if he had the key.

there is this
urgency
to write a poem
while i am still
wrapped in summer’s trees,
the bramble and bracken
we still wonder through
sometimes
wrapped in rain
sometimes we
closed our eyes
in the rain.

what we surrender to:
nearby, the swishing
sound of the sea.

urgent blooming in
late summer trees

we should be slow-dancing
in a slow wind.

(liquid, lake, river, brook, rain, dew, wave, foam)
and yet, the pen stays still on the desk all day.

i memorize patterns of ink.
the earth trembles, cuts flowers from stalks,
i want to go on a boat,

and float around this manhattan, neon blossoming
of new life ahead, but still, i miss you.

the sun sets on words made for snow. words
made for love in eskimo, like rubbing noses together,

or holding your heart as you pass by
slowly bamboo bows in the wind.

i have more room for words.

i wish to study the classics.

el raspado el chubasco

la avalancha la tormenta
de nieve copo
de nieve tienes mi corazón

imagine a snowstorm of peace.

free.

we listen.

listen.

a thousand walkways beneath it.

baffled by light-

touch, like a waterlily floating through my hair.

of re-joice?

as the wave hit, it felt like a dream.

the hope turning charterless, towards sea.

and vigor.

we live for, and eat.

centrifugal.

he loves me, he loves me not.

If you were I, and I were you.

Let me enfold you.

Slow down time.

to meet his love.

you were the first vision in my life
for many days, like a kite, i flew
inside of it, with so much love
blows fast like the wind.

and around the world
we turn and turn
and around the world
we turn and breathe

into it, this rushing and rumbling
of city life, marked by sunsets,
stitches in time,

and the sky opened up,
and swallowed me down,

in a rainbow of quiet lights,
white and brilliant,
as you were in charcoal,
and watercolor, the waves
washing both of us,

free.

i imagine softly,
by waterside, summer
crickets, and richness
in the air from all the green.

imagine softly, what will
come to pass, grows quietly
now, in thickets still brushed
new by spring,

and we imagine us
brushstrokes away
from falling close
like shafts of wheat
bowing soft in the wind,

there’s a small town,
somewhere lighting
lanterns at sunset.

i imagine us there,
in the orchards
ducking beneath
the pink dots of
apple flowers,

the summer ahead,
a ray lamontangue song,
a wildflower in my hair,
a haiku ahead of itself
for rhythm and for rhyme

we listen