it's hard to write something beautiful
and lasting
in this fugitive time;

our allotted share on earth
with the world in disarray
that poetry can not set right

we no longer meet at the edge of morning
in this room full of the litter of every day,
we pass through
at different times, leave messages
on torn scraps of paper

following a ball
we threw in a park
a long time ago

the dawn does not hold direction
nor light playing in the leaves
nor stars in my western sky

names have been sponged one by one
from the slate of memory

and lately the headlines enter into my heart
like an assassin
my heart is torn, unknown
to itself

as the winter within
freezes my breath

who will listen to the wind
carrying my faint voice
into the years

i want to walk on the soft carpet
of summer nights,

even though i will hear the desolate bark
of little dogs,

i will still remember your laugh

i keep trying to speak
with this voice of rusted machinery.
dawn came cold this morning
stuck to flypaper clouds.
it's finally winter
and the flowers of memory wilt
in the spinning wind
brittle in rows
of damaged magnificence.

where was it, exactly, that
our legend began?  where and when?
was it in hallways that led between mountains?
was it on the edge of the skies of youth?
was it near where the river pirouettes
past the playground i wandered in as a child?

or was it at the very corner of a mountain
where hawks dropped out into space
and wrote our story on the empty blackboard
of the past?

what is love after all, but the language
that gives us wings,
the scenes, poems, and dreams
stored so long in the backrooms

of our hearts' natural imagery

bamboo bends in the wind
kissing the ground like a
lithe-hipped dancer.

maple trees cradle
their shadows where
the path down cold mountain

is overgrown with sumac
and other invasive species.
the moon climbed up the solstice

and is resting now with vishnu
on a cloud. last night's candle
is asleep in its wax tears--

leave-taking at its simplest.
growing up is hard, watching
offspring grow up--also hard.

if there is a guiding light from heaven
i believe it is the moon
in a poem that dreams

of the scurry of a fawn
in a house of ferns
by the river that flows without ceasing

perhaps in the back of the book
of my heart, there is a poem
about the winter solstice
and christmas

a poem about
the angels
with sticky fingers
and a few loose teardrops

perhaps my father and
my mother hover a few feet
below the rustic ceiling
they've been picking blueberries

their fingernails are stained blue
perhaps all the friends i have offended
will feel forgiveness this year
perhaps we'll return to a pure beginning

perhaps with a sense of chaos
my ex-husband will remember
christmas eve is our wedding anniversary
perhaps the spiral of our lives

will pass close,
so close
to the love
we once knew

neither death nor silence ends real love
at any time
any one of the loved ones fallen from the map
may reappear
suddenly pushing the door open
overlapping faces and voices
transcending time   as we know it
maybe with their hands
they will pull me up
from where i sit on the sagging couch
maybe  we will go back to that innocence
maybe sunlight will disclose and spread
its infinite message
maybe they will trust that my love is true
maybe a low chime will ring from the bell
in love's temple, shaking off the lingering snow
of less fortunate times
maybe a choir of angels will flap their soundless wings
in the solemn dusk
waiting for night to break the lonely day
maybe there will be a song soft as moonlight
stroking midnight's dark skin
maybe human shadows will kindle into light
maybe fallen leaves will blow back on the branches

maybe a past moment will become the next moment

i believe it's there
beneath the piles of crackling brush,  the infinite
snow
abandoned wells of frozen water     it's there
in the tinkling of the wind chimes
the empty roads
the pitted rock ledges
the moon's alms of light
the bamboo bending under snow
there in the seven-story pagoda
the paper that thirsts for ink
the heart that beats with the farthest star     it's there
the apostrophe in the scripture
the question you keep hidden     the stinging sleet
the ghosts between your night sheets
the empty closet in your hours      there
in the bird
you hold against your grief
there in the city of wrecked ships
there  in the rays from the fingertips of a saint
there in the swamp's frozen lilies
laughing in a thousand mirrors
there in the footnotes of your calloused shoes
there in the country of the past
there in the lustrous, untouched core of the future
there, where a blue note sets forth
in the four-sided cement-ness of the wall

it is there / love by a barred window

pristine.
still falling.
spread over the dirty world,
like immaculate ignorance.

finest flakes
blowing like dandelion seeds
or arranged on the balcony,
lace for the hem of an old-fashioned dress.

ultimately, i will have
to hold all
the conversation
with myself

no one could possibly get through to here,
even with state of the art snowshoes.
i am alone on an undiscovered continent

my world is
like a love waiting
to be discovered.

the snow shovel itself
is finally invisible, completely buried
and i am weak in my bones.

but no one will know.
i am the only person
in this vast white room

dawn comes with cold clothes
and frozen toes. i think of the rise
and fall of the bed covers where you sleep

i walk on the edge of ancient chinese texts
facing the snow falling with total abandon.
the split wood blanketed in deep white sadness
asks if love is only to be found in negligees
and nakedness

no need to regret the divide of distance
we can be as intimate as i was
in a sampan with Tu Fu
who sailed the yangtze 1,200 years before i did

you and i also sail on a gently rocking cloud
in the middle of a long dream
affectionately clinging to each other
amidst the aroma of wood smoke
mixed with pages of poetry

is this the afternoon of Ten Thousand Years?
i hear crows cawing and i catch falling snow
on my tongue to quench the thirst for world vanities

and for love

i will let the long day carry me to some
grassy dream.  my body sleeps fitfully
in its magic bed; quivers at the slightest
current of air.

and in my dreams, the wind repeats tales
of other dreams, stars burn bluer
than the cornflowers of childhood.

over ages of silence, Li Bai's boat scrapes
on the sandbar.  what quest was lost?
what wine was spilled?
what eyes have wept?

what dreams unveil the spirit
and who listens to the stars
as i do?

no more lamenting in the bamboo grove,
no more ghost cries of heroes
and kings long dead.

only snow.  snow and crows.

fairyland. boundless snow
and depthless cold
clawing at the wind

and in the oven, my thanksgiving turkey
cooking, weeks late.
words hang like frozen banners
in space. icicles are strung
like chimes. my computer erases
whole lines of poetry
at whim.

the hat i am knitting has
fifteen rows to go
and there are only two rows
left on the skein.

the gray fur ruffles gently
on a roadkilled cat,
as if by a cosmic caress.
it gets flatter
with every passing tire.

it was during a snowstorm
when my grandmother stopped speaking
and started waiting for death.
she would not look in a mirror.
she threw away her false teeth

and waited for ten irritable years.

death came in the night when she stopped waiting.

there are things to remember:
scraping a split hog,
planting rows of corn
with a baby on my back,
rocking a fractious child

to the sound that
bamboo makes in air
that is heavy with the scent
of honeysuckle.
i remember a cabin.
a husband.
and a summer night
when all the stars fell.

today the view from my window
is a fairyland covered
with white frosting.   snow a foot deep:

my plow guy called and quit