--all these wandering roots
once reaching a surface
are changed into stone
and for first time left with a name.

You could rebuild the Earth
use the names stored here
for this snow growing wild
in the church's shadow :a delivery room
where this old woman with gloves
and a scarf  over her lips
holds up by the feet a child being born
a thousand times over. She too leaves a stone.

--a record for snow! plaques
are everywhere in the drifts
and still the church sends up its bell
to count as if her child was missing
was still in the air, nameless and angels.

You could pile a bridge here
and never forget its founding
or the way its walls restored again
begin to shake or what they defended
falling from your arms and bones,
 
 

*
 

This nest half calm, half stars, the air
almost white :morning
scares them, blows them back
till it's safe :at night

these eggs, as if nothing happened
--in that same artless formation
they are born with
and the mothering blue jay
without that heavy milk
as each volcano still nurses its child
born feeble, half frozen with feathers
that stir when I blow on them
and the dark from my breath.

These eggs thought it was night
was I turned my head to hear the ground 
being born :seeds calling out 
for the first time the cry 
they will boil forever
that these stars come back
without losing their way
without my arm covered with claws
and the small carcass
crumpled like my heart

--even a feather's too much
and this tree wailing under the weight
under a stone where egg
fell apart half way through the light.

How much more could this stone harden
as is my hand would not let go
and the branch on the calmest day
points to the ground
which it owns and more straw.
 
 

*
 
 

You see traces :this snow
from a madness in bees
and lilac --it's a game
asking each month to count backward
--only December remembers the sky green
songbird green
and nothing touching the ground.

Snow is new, unsure, left over
from a loose mist at last
condensed :the Earth still pulling down
more snow and the first dream
all those years airborne, fell

--it hates the ground, wants back the night
when December was the only word
for lightning not yet on the ground
and every dream since
hazy, wandering through dew
as if it almost remembers how to fly
to carry in its eyes 
the thunder once green, once December 

--it's a race but December 
is older than the world
and the world knows this, lets
the other months as geese
still circle the frozen pond
lift from this trap
only their vague reflection :six branches
all that's left from their feathers

--six shadows to remind the snow
how the flattening light
December alone had watched become 

the sun. --you can see the leaves 
the moths and that mirage whose breeze
was once your heart --the air
still makes a claim and you watch a word
become your lips and whisper

--how little air is left
and so much name, so much December
still green and flying.
 
 

*
 
 

I can mimic this fork, its bruises
bluish-red :my tongue
slips through the boxcar slats
--sticky flies smell my breath
grazing for the last time

--my teeth squeak :pulleys
crowding the bent trapeze
the carcasses and railroad siding

--you hear my teeth sway as every tong 
leaves a dark spot on the tablecloth
will camouflage my voice
wobbling in this pan 

--the cellophane wailing 
as linen still unwraps and the lamb
rebuilt, knee here, leg-- a jig-saw crucible
heated to fit again into its mother
the trickling dandelions, curdled sleep

and a small white paper bag
still filled with a child's breath
held tight for the thud torn open 
at the top, bleeds. copies this fork 
my throat and the table.
 
 

*
 
 

This cup half ecstasy, half adrift
half that delicate planet
the Earth once circled and warmed

--when I glue its sides
the embrace stays blemished
traces where ancient riverbeds
sleek and lush near the grout
dry and brittle near that first dawn
broken into random days and nights
--with each piece my hand
bristling with emptiness
and light blown apart.

When the glue dries
and skies everywhere holding fast
piece by piece rebuilt
the way cities are never sure
or my hand in flames
giving the cup shape and weight

--you hear this cup unfolding
what is now the sun waiting to be watered
--what you hear has a clear bell
is feeling its way, retrieving piece
by rippling piece bathing my hand
half mountainsides
half sometimes a great sea.
 
 
 

*
 
 

Dug out block by block --the arch
cowering the way volcanoes will wait
clogged, cramped --its dust-caked vault
desperate, nothing but pillars and light

that never get used to the ceiling
--when I point a bit more loosens
from warmer and warmer mountainsides
barely holding on --the curve

enormous, gathering with its great wing
forever in the downward stroke :a dome
half covered with marble, half
with moonlight that's still heated

by the sun lifting more and more birdcalls
--at that height I still confuse the floor
with your name, whisper the way this light
melts a place for you almost a face

almost the grass warmer and warmer
--it won't be you though one by one
your eyes trembling :plumes that will harden
into air, into steam and passing by.
 
 
 

*
 
 

It needs compost --oozing rinds and pits
not yet dirt spreading out for arms
and legs and mornings --not yet born

and this worm trusts me
the way unwary arteries will creep
close to my throat, not sure

they want to grieve --this worm
needs moisture, thinks my warm hands
are its own  --it will love the rain

that comes naked, without lips
and calling out for leaves
dead too long --name after name

and this compost pile
already the headwaters
already knows how to mourn

how to empty even the trees
and from my lips these reeking weeds
and from their screams the snow.
 
 
 

*
 
 

These are my everyday eyes, worn down
where some rusted spot is tracked
midair --I ask about the crew

but the doctor just smiles, flicks
another lens, peels
its almost invisible glass
and under the fading cold
what's left from a stray mountainside

--she's never had a bleeder like this
tells me again to calm my eyes
as if the drops won't smell from rain
from cockpit belts --further back
some gunners cling to the sharp lights
falling in slow motion, tells me

the colors lag, I need more reds
--measures, clicks and clicks, she clicks
as if two more patches
make that much difference where my eyes go
where they always go, left over
for more and more air
that's not a name or in pieces.

The spot's still lost, and she grins
only now she writes down
how often I scream
how just for an instant every chair
even hers is covered with glass and gauges
how sometimes in a sudden cloud
I almost get the colors back

--she almost holds my hand, almost
the landing, the sleepless valley
that hunts for my eyes, almost
almost, almost, almost ground.
 
 

*
 
 

Head down the way curtains
or the light that never dries
trails off into a fingertip

--with one touch a deadly flash.
I never miss. In the dark
a hillside falls, its frost

bathed by my heart whose clear eyes
open and close, devouring moons
whispers, distances --I follow

a ceremony, reach for some cold wall
that won't move closer
or away --I follow...you --each winter

replace switch over switch
as if somewhere a star-like sting
without gloves, all night

wetting down the broken plaster
not yet stone, not yet
forcing itself out the Earth

the way oceans struggle
even in the daylight --I'm good at it.
And my finger --with one breath, galaxies.
 
 
 

*
 
 

To erase their tracks my eyes
can tell by the knock
they're hunted by a smooth stone

--each eye tries to hide
in the same cracked windowsill
the same hard door falling open

to cover the world
and no place be divided in half
the way one eye makes out your body

before the other, undresses
in the cold, waits inside that knock
that has no lingering echo, no footprints

no name --that demands too much
as if it was made from your silence
from emptiness, from stone.
 
 
 

*
 
 

This slab once curled up inside
the way quarries stink from stonecutters
and slaughter and the Earth

chipped away for a pool half dawn
half clutching this shallow stone
where you and I are swimming

cramped in the same womb
not yet born --unfamiliar cries
already dark green and our mouths

filled with never ending water, fit
the way each raindrop
still leaves an ash, becomes

a speck, a chance split second
that could start this stone again
the crushing light it almost remembers

almost hears --we splash across
arm over arm as if the waves
are somehow reaching out, seeping back

shrinking, then expand till this stone
half you, half me, half rain
wearing the Earth and the waiting.