Breaking

Did I believe I had a clear mind?

It was like the water of a river

flowing shallow over the ice.  And now

that the rising water has broken

the ice, I see that what I thought

was the light is part of the dark

W.B.

go

the sun is setting on the years

the highways we unraveled

are recoiling in the dusk



must i always weep

for the joys i have had?



go easy, wanderer

your outreaching

is noble, and beautiful at least



"the most sublime act is

to put another before you"



if the wind is the usher of time

then the wind is our friend



uncoil a path,

and go before me

i'll go laughing in the dark

and waving grasses

for when the dawn comes around

let the good times roll

where are the glories of the years?

i caught it in the perfect of a day of rain

and the late light when it cleared

walking with you in the evening

like i've lived it and can finally

die smiling

what hides in the years?

this glorious unending

oaf god

o Artemis

go put her in a cloud

but she rains my water

and i cannot help myself

send her under ground

i will sink below the salt of the sea

o Artemis of mud 

and feather fletches

can you explain to me

the magnetism of rivers?

i will rest if you let me
where the cool waters come together

"be one be weak keep moving"

men i once admired
are courting ladies
i knew as children

it is said that tobacco
will kill a demon
incapable of reconcile

i'll send my fears downriver,
and hide their scent
with the southern winds

i want to keep my hands
out of your bad times
but keep them rough and ready

i want to trust again
in the ability of
being trustworthy

it is better sometimes
to smoke the demon
and smile with a toast

to the unknown dawn

the measure of open space

Here and there
you build a
fitting structure

to rhyme
with what's around it

             the
             rocks
                    the meadow grass
                                     the trees
                                          the water

and learn to
leave intact
the wet roots
of the swamp oak
                    and the alder

& the trails
of the deer
                    up the ridgeway
used these
30,000 years

ed sanders

joanne kyger

indigo flower wellspring anti-blues

“Hold on to your divine blush,

 your innate rosy magic, or end up brown. 

Once you're brown, you'll find out you're blue. 

As blue as indigo.

 And you know what that means. 

Indigo. Indigoing. Indigone.”- TR

there is a wellspring
somewhere the cats
won't even climb

its lineaments
are not shared with
the characteristics of space

indigo flowers
are always stooping
their heads to drink there

                 ~

sometimes i forget about it
and i take my hammock down
and just cocoon there on the ground

where the chickens are in a pile
in the sun, taking turns
to watch for hawks

but hey! i got bone flutes
i've got to find a way
to play to raise the moon

i got secret cats to track;
reel 'em in with finger magic
and string 'em in the hammocks

i got fox-gloves
to stick my fingers in
or my penis when i'm frisky

i got whole peninsulas to map;
of forests, dunes and grasses
and a millions yellow flowers on top

ah, but i've also got space-time
that jabs my mind
with its endlessness;
with what little of it is left

but o! its nothing; mostly
i got the shape of the sun
to stare at through the fog
and spring water to drink where
the indigo sighs

the eerie way the hawks are screaming

the ghostly shining of webs in the rosemary
the queer shivering of the shadows in the apple-leaves

the thunder on my mind

o how i used to run to mother in the storms;
a shame i've grown

i am as frightened as the day i was born

aphelion

aphelion; 

the farthest away

it is dark, as though 

i'm shooting arrows into black water

on the new moon at midnight

o 

it is distant

it is dark

i am far