Listening
Today is a day for walking. Tie on your boots,
and walk into the mists. Fields threaded with
yellow wildflowers and blue, grassy wrists
decorated by diamond pools, a listening shell
playing the bell of the prayer wheel
over and over again.
Does the jeweled ears of the monk hear?
The shuttling brown bird with […]

Coming into Night, Florence
after “Coming at Night to a Fisherman’s Hut” Chang Chi
This is where they fill up water glasses with red wine.
My mother dips her fingers in butter by the mouth of the river,
and light makes the tips of my boots glow-I
didn’t get to write to you yet, because
I am watching a […]

This isdustandwater.A tuftof summergrass.Teethandbonesof thebanyan tree.Silksand desire.Amber cutfrom themotherstone.The rutilated quartzfrom the teethof themaster.Atremorof handsagainstthe stringsof the guitar.Flakes of snowcollected ona whiteplate.This is yourmother’ssecretjournal.Your father’sdarklonging.This isthe gutter heartof old books.Paddlestouch waterin thecanalits waterrolling downyour silver ringsrolling downyour silver braceletsyour ivory combthe kohl from beneathyour eyes-the handprint of youis in its methodof holding on.The good nightwill […]

1.
There are snowy beasts inside of handswho scurry along the backbones of the mountains,they knit black fissures, are the only things that keeps lovers together.

Woman Carrying Thing
after “Man Carrying Thing” Wallace Stevens
The red shoe must carry resistance
Like a bird in a raincoat. Illustrate:
A woman in a brown coat walking in the evening resists
Identity. The diamond she carries, resists,
Makes heavy in her hand, the necessity of the evening
Secondary to the obvious whole. Perceived like
The gold earring […]

Apricot Wheel
Apricotflowers.Ribbonsmadefromanarsonist’smatch.Sweetclementine.Sunlightandred applescommuneto makethe colorof aholy one’srobes.Hymnfallenoutofaholybookbefriend me.I trysohardtoloveyoubutfaileverytime.

Rain on the steeple, rain in the hair of a boy plays cello on the spanish steps,by the orange trees,while the girllaces upher sunday shoes.Does he pluck the strings so he can makeweather happen?Does his songmake this rain fall?

Rain
Based on a poem by Kabir
Why should we abandon the ghost?
Just as the lotus lily loves
pressing her hands on the body of water,
we love the thick and sweet smell of incense,
we love painting the color of our skin gold.
Open the thundercloud inside of you,
and let the landscape unfold.
Dust and water. Wet silk
running indigo […]

I Could Have Said
I could have said my handsare made of dustfrom migrating monarch’s wings,it is fall, and I am falling.
The forest is full of ghosts in black coatswith messages written in india inkacross their backs, and I am afraid.
The city is full of those markedby the metallic sting of the stigmata.
You could have said […]

Old Love
Ripe figs and rainwater,sooty rooftop sparrowsand the chimneyfull of mist.
Eggs, anise and breadto make the morning with.
On paper, I’m casting my lineinto fresh water with the desirefor kill I will throw wrigglinginto the basket, whispering your name-
but you are already in the gardenplanting seeds, nursing the first born,happy with your hands on theshoulders of […]