i wanted to write about something
similar to this approaching morning
with its overdue rain,
maybe something not quite as dark

but would you look at this?
a page as blankly apprehensive
as yesterday's page
a wordless weekend, and
a cup of bitter coffee

and beside me, a precariously piled
hill of bills and books
cascading to the floor
onto the threadbare persian carpet.

you are... somewhere...maybe dead,
maybe alive, maybe your mind
has left you. we have become
prisoners of our souls
at home in our separate cells
for whatever reason

so i watch this gray fury of sky
hoping for some sign of you,
perhaps stumbling down the path
to the old spring in arkansas
carrying your whole life
behind your tired ribs

into time's descending shadows

"

i wish i could find words that have not been ruined."

a chilly night at home, poems pressed
between the pages of my heart
and the mark of a far land, where
the sun highlights fir trees
at a meadow's edge in my dreams.

it almost seems the wind
conveys an urgent message,
like a poem by Szymborska
you have never heard a bird call
with such homesickness as this owl
outside my window, nor a river whisper
with such tender understanding.

the descending darkness stirs
up the sighing leaves covering the ground
and all the sounds of night become
a thousand words, mumbled repeatedly,
like swaying willows on the riverbank
entangling me.

in this unpoetic life of worrying about daily
details,  truth and trust are concealed deeper
than ever in fears that drag on year after year,
in quarrels, in angry outbursts, in suspicion..

and i know that you know
that getting together is easy.
(the thing that's difficult, is staying..)
a face of wind and frost,
the evening sky that turns away--you should know
that i accept these things.  i will not turn
back the pages of a diary to look
for you when you are gone.

last night as i boarded that train
of darkness, i thought of a song
about an illusory butterfly and even after nightfall,
even in high winds and storms,
i stubbornly realize that
love will always be my permanent faith

though the road is long and hard
and meetings and partings unknown,
even with torn wings and wilted flowers,
there is still a kind of persistence and transparency,
although it sometimes seems cruelly silent,

and far beyond reach