Sway

If birds or boats lose sway, there
will be no fighting wind or wave.

A train won’t sway, that degree
of freedom is restricted by rails.

A drunken pedestrian tends to sway
before the surge tumbles headlong.

A teacher, in late winter, longs for
the sway of a flag suggesting: spring.

It is hard to keep sway when so
much time is wasted as waiting.

When we read, is it our eyes that sway, or
do the words move along a line in cadence?

There is nothing more natural than a
child dancing: all roll, sway & yaw.

When the time comes that a father’s sway turns to pitch
& heave, may the done dance have led to some long good.

Three Hearts

1. Ambivalence (Reverdy)

heart of the thornbush,
rosehips, bloodflower,
flos Adonis, anemone:
sublimity, ephemera,
beauty, loss & love.


2. Endocardium, Lub & Dub (Klink)

in the middle of things: the push
of pressure, release & hold,
cusp & valve, no click but systole:
thump, thump, diastole: dub


3. Ultrasound (Cummings)

the heart inside the body
inside your body does not
beat, beat so much as
whoosh, whoosh:

there is no knowing what living
with this double drum does
to a body so close to giving
everything only to hear, so
soon that cyclical whirr turn
to crying out the first time.

there is no way to repay
the carrying of a heart
that, one day, will give
itself away to someone else.

Winterlong

“I will use the coal you gave me/ make a timeless masterpiece”
[Kelli Schaefer, “Black Dog”]

We learn when we are young that even the destruction of fire preserves;
The conservation of energy, he said, means there is nothing in total to be lost.

Ash packs the road side, thick from the stacks smoke rises each morning,
We never imagine its eventual fall as we sleep or lie awake in our cold or warm beds.

This is useless, this keeping warm, essential heat escapes like breath, like smoke.
What is this we burn when silence won’t obey, when the masterpiece evades?

We huddle together for warmth, so many hands around the fire telling lies,
so many uttering tongues, so many chances for a verse to catch, so many germs.

Time burns, colors shift, cloth fades, even marble crumbles back to ashen heaps.
This is process, there is nothing else, let forms change, let potential collect.

Energy: a thin black line, a cloud transforming, a vein of mineral, a dusted plain.
This gift given, without intention, will someday explode into being & disappear.

Son

a quiet cry, after
midnight, early sun-
day, that might have
been a dream or
discomfort, lonely-
ness or phantom pain,
I thought I should
have let ignoring settle.
forgive me my appear-
ing there without any
help to give but
fatherhood or lack of
sleep to match yours.
as it turns out,
it was thirst &
just one story:

when there is some-
one listening there is
always reason for cry-
ing out & when some-
one cries out there
is always reason for
rising & to go.

Is this not the
meaning of all
our music: cries
& listening? Thank
you, son, for song.

Dubito Ergo Sum

or The Philosopher in the Bread Oven

[A Play in one Act]

Desy (eyes closed): It is lonely here at the bottom of things.

Mouse (perched on back legs, hands out): Friend, you are not alone here. You are never really alone.

Desy (eyes still closed): But I can’t be sure of you, pal. After all, I might just be imagining you, right?

Mouse (hands slowly dropping to his mousy sides): And would that really matter, friend?

Desy (eyes wide open): Pal? Where’d you go?

Mouse (gone): Je suis partout.

Desy (eyes closed again): Il y a beaucoup à regretter.

Blizzard?