And Resurrection
Again a rattling alarm
in all the pits of the body
the limbs seize up

The house dodders over
the brink of silence      wings sagging
on a lawn of sand
like an angel when it’s lost
the strength to hover

Hoarse from another night wasted
shouting warnings at sleep
dawn’s surf crawls back under the porch
after a night ringing the buoys like church deadbells
it stretches out by the pilings
and digs

The sun scrawls up
the milky slate of the sky
chalk in a palsied hand
sentenced to write
until it gets it
right

              and ever shall be world
              without end amen
              amen

Great sheets of dew thrown up to dry stiff
will they ever come clean
of their bridal stain
while the needles of jets
mend north to south
where those blue patches wear and tear

where we shiver awake
cold in a draft
Midsummer Eve
As my left hand eases onto her sleeping hip
I know the way of a snake on a rock

At the magic syllables of mourning dove and whippoorwill
the snake straightens into a staff and strikes the rock

An oasis wells up through the black sand of the night
and we drink where the dove has found her branch
This Poem
This poem calls attention to itself
as goldenrod pollen     blown in overnight onto your pillow
calls attention to itself

This poem is slight
as lichen     that cracks a stone bench and holds the cracks together
is slight

This poem is weak
as pine     logged     hauled     sawn     pulped     beat into eraseable paper
is weak

This poem is dispensible
as a plainly dressed child     laughing on a crowded playground
is dispensible

This poem is blind
as tears climbing into your eyes     when rain ages to snow and snow to ice
are blind

This poem is deaf
as a diamond     rough in the shovel     fine in the watch of a dying man
is deaf

This poem is dead
as the sand     wherein ghost crabs and rising sun clams have buried themselves
is dead

This poem is reborn
as I     all my nerves restrung by your hands     strummed in the new sun
am reborn