October

September 16, 2012

October

Day

breaks, and suddenly

the sky erupts in blue, as if

it’s the first sky, as if

the earth died and was reborn

in its sleep.

I breathe in the dry, volcanic blue

and its embers ignite my lungs,

blazing through my bones, and my body

aches to feel the wind through its fingers,

the sunlight coursing through its veins.

My feet slap the hard ground, my

limbs stretch and lengthen,

muscles burning with this

young fire as I

run and run and run

and remember the world:

raw and new and alive.

Distance

September 11, 2012

distance

Consider

the space between the gull

and the sea, its separate levels:

here the disparate mist,

still cold and white despite

the sun’s heat, a chilly rainbow or two;

here nothing but air and particles

of dust, floating in the currents; and here

other seabirds, swooping and calling

in scattered swarms,

and the one gull,

apart, eyeing the horizon

or the sand, until,

diving downward, crossing through

air and dust and sunlight and water,

it makes the tiniest of splashes

as the open beak touches the waves,

and emerges, and soars back up.

I consider

the golden-red stain of this October, and how

the leaves in free-fall drift along rivers,

tracing the miles between here

and there, as I, with hands

and feet, slowly pantomime

whatever I’m asked to

without you.

I long for the kind of moment

when the night sky is streaked with rain,

the stars like ocean spray: a moment when

two strangers walk past each other, and one

decides to smile.

Somniloquy

September 7, 2012

Somniloquy

i.

My head still rests

on your chest, and I think

you’ve fallen into sleep.

I can hear very clearly

each breath you take;

the movement of air

creates a slow, deep resonance

in your lungs and in my ear.

The sound is low and grumbling:

a thunder reluctant to cross the gray

cloudy sky, sad to signal

the impending autumn.

The slight rain, though, is cool against

late summer’s heat – quick

and cold, its song

awakens the skin, and I can

feel

       each

               drop.

ii.

A murmur escapes your lips.

it’s just a whisper, but suddenly

I am filled with a longing to know

what you’re saying, what secrets

or lists you’re reciting from.

I want to understand your idiolect,

write definitions for your personal lexicon,

transcribe the orthographical patterns

of your sleepy speech.  I could map out

the acoustics of every apical consonant,

the irish fricatives and african clicks –

sounds all strung together, or perhaps

clipped short by your teeth.

I want to imitate your fine-print

tonal shifts until I’m tongue-tied.

I want to decipher this rhapsody

of vibrations in the air,

interpret this revue of breath

shaped by your throat and your mouth.

You mumble on for a bit, and then

you’re quiet again, breathing in

and out,

low and deep.

I’m left with a moment of wonder:

a strange and lovely sensation,

like a small glimpse

of pages filled

with someone else’s words.

iii.

The smooth, even cadence

of your heartbeat, at least

seems to say love you,

love you,

love you,

and maybe this is only me hoping,

but I don’t think that’s sleep

talking.

The things you think about on clear winter nights

August 30, 2012

The things you think about on clear winter nights

A comet criss-crosses through a sky

studded with stars that shine

like city windows, like

sparks of electricity. 

Its hyperbolic trajectory traces

arcs through deep space, or maybe

it hurtles around suns

like an airplane around the earth,

like an electron around a nucleus.

You interstellar traveler,

do you ever get homesick?

I know you race on farther than the glimpse

we catch, faster than numbers race through wires,

or an electrical impulse across synapses in the brain.

Pulled on by gravity, or destiny,

blown on by solar winds,

comet:

I wonder,

do you ever long

for your cold nebula home?

If you could, would you ever return?

Or are you like us,

the planets,

the molecules,

wandering forever and yet

trapped by your routines:

your physics, your fate.