April 26

Even if the form shifts, there is something in the cloud that overflows onto the clear portion of the sky. I can’t hold anything in place, and shouldn’t even try. It would be better to build my own bulwark out of sticks and bones and the contempt of swindlers. What could be more audacious than the sound of an inveterate liar making a mockery of the neighbors, who have lived beside me for more than twenty years without so much as a good morning. Only when my Jack Russell leapt into the mouth of their German Shepherd did I hear from them. My dog came home in one piece; for that I am grateful. Also for the table and what is on it, and for the red that permeates the human handiwork. Although it is not my favorite color, it is the most necessary. Like an experience one can recall, even if one did not, oneself, live it through.

April 25

How hard you had to work to get it done. They, whoever they are, say that death is like labor, but it’s much less clear what is born. I have an old address book open on the desk; I’m looking for whatever I can find of your remains here, where time is the manager of nearly everything. Winter didn’t want to end, but finally was forced to by the height of the sun. Also, I think all the cold air in the arctic had finally blown away. I wonder what it’s like there now. Cold is relative. I wanted to put you in a sweatsuit in your grave, but that pretty lavendar dress is taking its sweet time with you instead. Who are you in the world now? Almost nothing, becoming more so with every day that passes. If there is no memory, what remains?

April 24

I could not become what the green spring asked of me nor could I speak plainly of the lake, the pond, the river, the bay, or any place where tides changed the waterline. I let it wash my feet. A cloud overcame the sun, which had only scarcely recently arrived. The sky became watery, trespassing on the province of another element. All the birds took it into their pineal glands to leave, just then, darting off like so many schools of minnows. Only this minute are they every one gone. I could not hamper the departure of anything that wanted to leave, despite my despite. And I could not fail to notice how lovely was the desolation of my soul as it reached to and confided in the desolation of the empty world around.

April 23

Answer and Question

No, I’ve never seen one and I’m not sure

they exist. Morning in the middle

of the woods, and I’m not certain

of the trees or the small creatures

that run between them on the deep paths,

I think, with the help of their ancestors,

as we, too, run the roads set

before us. Grandfather, what stones

did you carry that have made

my pockets so heavy?

April 22

Down the street there is no

street just field and some

trees put there to keep

the street from continuing

There are few wild places

in the city except the ones

we make in the back yard

or in the inner world

To draw in wild animals

one must make a mess

of things and let them run

carefully to ruin and tangle

April 21

Windows blurred with sudden rain

it’s no gift of the gods where a million sandbags

are readied for the flood

The tips of your fingers aching

even a child knows that scales are the bitter

before the sweet

Press against the window

is the rain near or far away or does glass

keep you from knowing

Three pears still sit in the faded light