it helps to think of it

 Though things may look different,

it helps to think of it like

You are stepping off of the porch onto the dewy grass

It is nighttime, the porch light has not turned on yet

And you are standing there with your arms just off your sides

And your fingers open ready to catch the world

Looking up at a bright moon between the trees

Breathing in and out quietly

And the ocean breathes in and out.

And your eyes flash knowingly,

As they always did,

And your face screws up into a smile,

As it always did.

And you turn your head, seeing Grammy,

And a whole life begins, the stars appear

the cedars rustle in a soft wind,

And you say, “Hey babe.”

Earth as seen from earth

Earth as seen from Voyager 1 while on the edge of our solar system (approximately 3,762,136,324 miles from home). 

“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives….

Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. “

 ~Carl Sagan

and again look—

where do you see yourself?

Flitting between the minute pixels of the blue,

Perforating the ink with your curling smile,

blink-

how it goes away.

“look again at that dot.”

fascinate- just as we are by reflections in the mirror-

blue, the blue of your eye shadow

as you check yourself again and fidget,

not ready to sit down with me; you aren’t ready but you

disappear as you exit the frame.

I want to hang this picture of a dot

on our first apartment wall, alone

in the white, empty space of the virgin paint—

paint one blue dot that says it all.

When guests come in

we won’t be able to check ourselves in the mirror

as we get the door

so we’ll look at that blue dot,

see what we look like.

What do we look like?

I’ve never seen—

I should get it tattooed on my body,

to be sure I’d have it.

You’ve got plenty on your body,

across your back, quotes behind your ears

the makeup that spans and shifts your face

but it’d be the one

unnatural placement of ink on me that I didn’t clear out onto the page.

One tiny satellite amidst the constellations of freckles on my back,

marking— there is something missing.

One tiny dot. Is it me?

Can you fit in it?

I would look again,

the words everything we will ever know, everything any of us has ever known

is in this one little dot. Is it on me? And where have you gone—

And why do I feel like there is something missing?

From these dates, from building a relationship,

experience by experience,

silly little fact here- the serious conversation about childhood-

favorite colors- how long before I have to memorize your birthday?

Where are we in the big picture?

Earth.

There isn’t much to find, there is just

this one blue dot.

It’s trouble to keep occupied.

You are here though,

somewhere across the mm that seems so very long and wide.

I will always look again—

The dot—

like a pupil, not a spot, but a hole-

a search or a sight or,

however it is, where are you?

Don’t be afraid of loneliness*, is being whispered to me,

we will take each other down

to the lake, with the waters that shiver

—where I would marry you,

right in the water where we would embrace

and not feel so alone

surrounded by all the tiny blue dots that are something more—

The angel who wrestled hid his face

even from Jacob-something, even in dreams

hiding keeps up the search but we cannot hide, here.

You hide your face, it is not so small;

Sometimes I have never seen it.

I hardly know who you are sometimes.*

These poems are all attempts—

You may come, you may change

this question that looms over us but—

“a mote of dust”?

I think, what’s really in it?

Questions about love?  Or loneliness?

And from the expanse of silence and space,

and from earth,

you tell me look again—

kezar 2017

we lost stars in the bourbon,
caked ourselves in muddy
smoke and cranked the
voice of a leaden seafarer
until the night was filled with ink.
it was pink when we rose
dull as dawn and full of longing--

here, we refuse to dissipate
like clouds seeking
the full sky.
i am sad with my brother
lost on the dock
staring at the same mountains
year after year.

i carry it as an ant
carries a twig above
its head, others bear
it like a log beneath
their feet, or a stone in
their pocket.

it is hard not to apologize.
when my eyes close,
i feel it humming like
a temporary insect,
a brother dragonfly
about to land.

these nights are for the bobcat,
wild. we stay in the wood
laughing at the puzzle,
holding everything at arms
length to catch the shadow.

we boast of trees like
grass and holy lakes
that fill our mouths.
at the edge of the mountain,
when we rest out legs
and pant-- it would be
so easy.

Mica lights the way down
and i hold winter this
summer in my growing rings
like a proud spruce.

sacred are my brothers
who with different eyes
stare out into imagined
edges of worlds and wait with
me to climb down.

where does our moss grow?
who holds this here,
this second like
running water?
and where will it show on us?
in scars? in fruit?

forest glenn

i have seen the men who do not cry
crying too much this week, shoulders
unaccustomed to shaking, breaking
down in the summer heat like an
avalanche.

they buried him beneath a small
maple by the 4 trees where
we used to meet and smoke.
we sang bankrupt on selling
and wept beside a tombstone
that reads "butt."

afterwards, we did not know
what to do-- we sat in our suits
in the dirt and broke twigs
in silence.

stay with me

like the sky, like the ocean
swirling, changing, shifting, surging,
like rootless cuban plants,
like the feeling
we will survive this.
you and i are old as mountains.
you and i are opening our eyes
for the first time.
i am listening to your heart.
we breathe with the Earth.
I will hold you until
           everything ends
                   and even then--

.

Earlier, amongst the lady slippers

slipping green out over the garden of sun-

glassed spiderwebs, slitting

across the history of it was

the ending that makes us men.

Things happened on the day he died:

We talked about how childhood ended

In the sun, before we knew

Death walks in and out

a guest too familiar, touches things,

gusts through, dirties the family portraits.

If he saw a ceiling fan or tiles,

If the water was running or he hit his head,

If he felt it forming words

Or caught a glimpse as it drew down

His eyelids like lampshades—

If he went to sleep silent,

If there was no music playing,

If in the other room, somebody paused the music

And took a phone call or played a video on the tv—

In the backyard, he is laughing at my smoke,

He is burning bushes to make a path there,

So we may sneak out before morning.

He is grazing in the grasslands,

Thinning out and growing tall,

He is telling us it’s ok to close our eyes now,

He is telling us of morning

In the scratches on his guitar –I don’t want

the pieces to come together—

Not the rainstorm that blew over the lake,

Nor the final lights closing in the forest,

Not the missed call in the morning when I still could have turned around,

Not the dead plant on the floor,

Not the cloud of dirt around the plant,

Not the open window blurred with rain water,

Not the screaming in the basement,

Not the warm hands on my chest,

Not the words, not the words

It is not fair.

Every new year he is smiling deeper,

And his warm eyes can hold you longer,

His big hands are pulling back someone who is drunk

And when we circle round, he is asking

to be let in, like an Elijah whose door has closed.

I do not know how 

there can be any children

anymore.

If it was not quick—

Or if it was not long enough to say his piece—

He’s gone down to the cold part where the ice fish

Slice around the water,

He’s got a fire going on the beach, but he sits out of the light,

He is singing so beautifully the wind begins again

Though it had promised not to mourn him.

I am listening now, just how you would,

Nodding, sitting, open-mouthed and ready to go,

Your hands not quite still on the guitar.

We took you back by morning light,

We gave you roofs and mountains.

Now, everything that moves is not quite you.

Not quite how it was.

Up on the rocks, the city still wraps the earth,

And new seekers sing, I’m sure,

But none like you—

Long hair framed in light,

Eager, so young,

Staring at me with the words

“we are going to change the world,”

barely off your tongue.

If you did not know all that you gave me--

I am sorry. I will leave the door open