thought i'd wake up in the night
when the cold sky opened
with some sort of knowing

thought this morning
my soul would finally cleave

thought the poppies would 

come up this year
and bloom today

but they didn't

and so       just now

i thought about your hands

and realized they are exactly 

the size of the rain's

phenology

yesterday the crab-apple by the house
today the lilac by the garden
i calculate star geometry
and anticipate the dogwood

me, i'm looking for the perfect stone
in the dark of rain at noon
and to measure my fortunes
by the roughness of my hands

princess light

only one answer

I stood in the flowery dawn
(the summer triangle rising
just before the light)
and asked my question plainly

"Just how many poems
can one man compose
on the subject of spring?"

I heard the hyacinths blooming

Black Sun

To awaken is to return to being
to be re-lit in a dark cubicle;
the first steps that I take
in this re-being are tentative.

To again be in such darkness
is a sailing without compass.
I have my compass by my side,
the dark expanse of a black sun

which is your hair,
inverse lighthouse, lightless,
that gives me direction
with the gypsy light it beams.


                   

                                                -- J.C.M.N.