I could have left a note
but it’s windy over there near the bay
You’ll be back before the melting
they remind us every day anyway
I listen to Neve and The Deer Children
sing songs in a language I do not understand
Which path did you choose at the crossroad
I wonder over morning coffee
Where is her other hand you’ll probably ask
when you arrive and find my sign
Why are there no footprints
either coming or going
Amid quiet crumbling beauty
we tread with light deliberate steps
watchful for what could happen
for some unexpected opening in this damp and fragile earth
into which we may fall
Here lies evidence of possibility
we see through our sunglass obscured eyes
all there is to see of what remains after abandonment and its aftermath
decay in slow motion
a death in silence
What will we have learned having come as witnesses
to imagine what was and then what has become juxtaposed
And can we say with conviction in our voices when we emerge
from this moist sinking landscape
to walk again on the even ground of modernity
that we understand
Who left first and who was the last to cross the bridge
Who won
How shiny was the prize?
After long absence I return
to this terrace
Softness drips from last night’s rain
Birdsong rises from cedars and red maples
Wind sings praise to the floating world
I sit again among fat brown spiders
Still afraid
but it is they who knew me first
I wander slow
past Mary’s door
I pause to see
her tapestry
hanging still
in her dark window
Mary’s door
locked from the inside
Mary don’t
live there no more.
Before her funeral
Death
some ether concept
still absence
paralysis in lilies
now
I know the smell of dank breath
Death’s
accessible
to anyone.
Pencil Notes 