&

Anymore the rain that matters, anymore the thistle.
And never matter the word as a way of being for:
In the era of post-modern and maybe

the mammals still strike up friendships.
I let the vines cover these windows on purpose.
Neither laziness nor doubt—but memory.

I was the wind, and the needle she went for.
I was the bridge and halt to elsewhere—
and the book that told the lie survives.

Eagle topping the deodar, barn-owls in the palms,
moss on the roof where the old shed sags.
The magpie will be here for the tree-green act.

Thistle, weevil, rain—whoever prays, prays.
Ever the green door opens, you must go there.

&

At Big Creek celestial creaking—canopy-light,
world greening and the river-white sound.
I knew no lullabies but sang her a story

where in the story the horse Mazy dies—
where she would go, what hope unfolding,
what mind concluding down around her.

Forage the wet forage. Forage the dry.
She was a bit of bird-song her stubborn self—
in rule of point and passage, in point of being.

And the skinny cow-faced dog is rat now
and the grassy puddles tremble in the rain.

&

Also I penned a delicate engine, green wash over.
Saw several mysteries unfolding—Gracie Gracie Gracie:
barn owls in the palm tree (heads on shoulders) sleeping.

Book says not ever three grown owls in a single tree!!
Three Gracies say maybe well a palm tree.
Maybe not maybe the Gracies say,—

or why would anyone draw an engine ever now?
Where will I go with my engine, my unfolding.
In rule of great and thick, in rule of passage—

wand, prayer, deck of cards, revolver—
why would anyone ever draw an engine now?

&

If I wanted to know what the birds want
I should have paid attention to the book,
it being late in the history of study.

Still—what kind of bird would just stand there
under the sun for mad dogs, pecking at rocks
where once the birdbath sat,—bird stupid.

&

That bloody sickle is our moon, the hills are black.
The chickens have broken their own warm eggs,
the chickens have feasted on yolk.

Sleep leaves the barn owls and their phantom chicks.
Ghost-bodies speaking: this is the wind they came for.
The sound of fronds on the sky in the wind—

sound they stayed for. Body in mind-darkness.
Ministry of fog forgotten. Ministry of hunger.
Bloody sickle, hills black. The owl is stirring.

The night is a hunting night. The night is a dark door.
Ever the green door opens—fly.

&

Solitude of all remembrance, magnitude of knowing—
holding your muzzle I let you go down, dust—
you were a fading light then, a disappearing blaze.

Out in the open by the backhoe, Mazy
move clockwise, move counter. Moss persisting—
trough of brown water where you and the Dane drank—

murky water where the small dog swims.
Corral-dust, trough of red film settling unforgiven.
Remembering your look from a long way in.

Remembering the slow shut, then gaze returned.
Mazy leave your smell now, leave your ribbon.
Leave a plain-stay Mazy, once: your look returning.

Shut the sky darkens, shut darkens the aftermath.
With the buzzards you are not now nowhere circling.

&

We will calm and craze, begin another never.
Not the language of renewal, nor the nothing-to-retrieve.
For the meant of history lies in the seen.

Mathematics of rain on snow, for example.
Or the strategy of birds across the globe.
Or we are not a spectator sport say the chickens.

I brought home mustard-flower and little legumes,
small arguments home from their home in the vineyard—
for the sub arguments of the moving mind are endless.

I let the vines cover these windows on purpose.
The bird outside is another story.

&

Chimera of shapes in neutral where the old molds break.
Chimera of things revisited will go to any length—
forgetting with remembrance at its cusp. I did it.

I did it not so long ago for unheard voices.
I did it not so long ago for scientific voices.
She was no small entrustment—I had my reasons.

The bridge and halt to later—unforgiving.
Unforgiving—the tillage in its earnest rows of clot.
The maybe with its next of kin the therefore—

land of concur and stone I am not that I-did-it.
Also, I am here of my own choosing.