epilogue to "Mother of Stone" (november)

i should have guessed it would be
the levity of clouds; the high ones

and certain tones of darkness
in the weightless morning

Mother of Stone (october)

have i come to the hands
of the Mother of Stone?

           



              granite smoothing
              in a rivers calm

              the stoned bedlam
              of a bedrock soul





how i danced
wildly once,
ecstatic and alone!





              now,  whole occurrences of my mind
              have slowed and even stopped
              like flowing magma
              resting into form





i'm not sure its science
but i get the feeling
that certain lichens would thrive
on the dormancy of my soul





                not that a stone
                is uninspired or not glad
                but should the mind of a man
                slow to such hardness?





the days are igneous,
and maintain a directionlessness
of geological precision

dreams more metamorphic
but offering no more pattern
than a maze of mountains





                   reduced by a river


                   abandoned like a boulder
                   in a terminal moraine





o Stone Mother
whose slow stone eyes
arrest my soul

indeed
you are beautiful
but let me go

i leave my tea cup out all night
in the morning i drink moonlight

Three Poems on the Solitude of Autumn Wind

a windstorm in autumn

can do the strangest things

with candle light



                ~



it is good when it is dark

and the wind is blowing

so that when you look to the stars

you mistake the few small passing clouds

for subtle darknesses in the universe

that slowly shift



                ~



not even the restless winds

can stir my granitic soul;

my only hope is for

a thoughtless autumn

in the golden crown-fire

of sunrise in the fir tops

if my mind is a meadow

i am at the half-illumined edge

i am walking into the forest

away from the sun into the forever of morning


let whoever may

enter that meadow freely

i'll come back someday

from A Private Fall

It's possible autumn is a tomb

out of which a child is born.

We feel a secret joy

and we tell no one!

R.B.  

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