On Contemplating Consciousness
Open sky with whittled clouds
splintered by rain. A bitter tang
loops through ideas of matter
that shore up solitude. I’m dizzy
with concentric thoughts, framing myself
one way or another, in light or in shadow.
In search of a place for my lack
of faith, what lugs my sorrows along,
what tests my need for fit,
tongue and groove, hook and eye.
The drudge of January pushes me
inside the house, under the afghan
my mother made, a cloud of cream wool.
The lamp is always on, pooling around me
to make a cocoon. I should light some candles too,
for their tenderness.
Missing
Where are the birds?
Not among the still trees
iced and crystalline,
but asleep in the rules of winter,
slow heartbeats with no echo.
Such Winter Lies
such winter lies, the labored boughs
empty of birds, the wind, bitter
then convulsive a note disturbs
silence, high and unwitting
as if the dead had long memories
the carry of memory, stiff, garbled
at other times, extravagant, we twist
and turn, examine and decipher
some of it left behind
the solemn months where forgiveness
comes easy, isolation smoothes
what we hoped for and lost,
insects burrowed in glad sleep
words boiled down to letters, pause
such winter lies, the stubborn sky
vacant above drifts of gold leaves
and broken ferns an old grief
with no shadows furled beneath
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